At the two-day South-South Exchange Workshop on Brick Technology and Policy, participated by representatives of 11 countries, policy makers and experts have concluded that impacts of pollution caused by brick kilns can be reduced by adopting modern technologies that cause far less pollution, using alternative building materials like fly ash and recognizing the problems at political level.[break]
Participants also emphasized the importance of inter-ministerial coordination among ministries of housing, industry, health, agriculture and environment to effectively tackle the brick kiln pollution.
The workshop was held by the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC) and jointly hosted by the National Institute of Ecology in Mexico and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the workshop, Krishna Gyawali, Secretary of Ministry of Industry in Nepal, emphasized the urgency of the problem, noting that the brick sector consumes more than 50 percent of the total coal in Nepal.
The majority of brick kilns in operation are traditional kilns, also known as artisanal kilns. The primary fuels used to fire the bricks are coal, wood, local biomass and any available low-cost fuel or scavenged fuel, such as bunker fuel, waste oil, used tires, sawdust, plastics, battery cases and dung.
Limited access to electricity makes it a challenge to modernize and mechanize the sector.
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