Brick kilns contribute about 9 per cent of total black carbon emissions in India

With 70 per cent of buildings in India yet to come up, the country needs cleaner technology and alternative options: CSE’s Anil Agarwal Dialogue 2015

Second day of Anil Agarwal Dialogue 2015 continues discussions on ‘The poor in climate change: How the co-benefit agenda of short-lived climate pollutants can work for or against people and the Planet’. New Delhi-based think-tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) organises these Dialogues every year
The Dialogue series was instituted in 2007 in memory of CSE’s founder, Anil Agarwal
The two-day Dialogue this year is ranging over what are known as short-lived climate pollutants – black carbon – and some of their sources: diesel emissions from vehicles, emissions from cookstoves and those from brick kilns
Clay bricks constitute the key building material in most of the Global South, and their manufacture leads to high emissions
Focus on alternative building materials to offset the environmental impacts

New Delhi, March 12, 2015: Brick making from clay – an industry which is concentrated largely in China and the South Asian region (including India) – has huge environmental costs: from emissions of black carbon to the loss of valuable top soil. It is also an industry that’s here to stay, considering clay bricks are the mainstay of construction.

The options to offset the environmental impacts – agreed speakers at the ongoing Anil Agarwal Dialogue 2015 here today – range from improvement in technology of brick kilns, ban on inefficient kilns and enforcement of stringent emission standards to finding alternative building materials that are less polluting.

These experts were talking in sessions on clean technology for brick kilns and the option of alternative building materials, held on the second day of CSE’s Anil Agarwal Dialogue 2015, here.

Speaking at the Dialogue, Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general, CSE, said: “India alone consumes 350 million tonne of topsoil and clay to make some 200 billion bricks. There is growing concern about the environmental impacts that such a scale of production leads to. The question is, how to make brick kilns’ production clean and find alternatives which are affordable and yet sustainable to meet the huge housing requirements of our regions.”

Countries of the South have a massive ‘under-construction’ agenda – as much as 70 per cent of India, for instance, is yet to be built. “With such a huge impending construction boom, there seems enough scope for different kinds of technology, but we do need cleaner ways to move forward,” said Bhushan.

“Part of the challenge as well as opportunity is to explore the possibility of sourcing building material from industrial and mining waste. India has a massive problem, for instance, of disposal of fly ash from thermal power plants. Can fly ash be efficiently used to make bricks?” Bhushan asked.

According to Soumen Maity of Development Alternatives, who spoke at the Dialogue, India generated about 163 million tonne fly ash in 2013. Only 61 per cent of this was utilised – and this utilisation, says Maity, has led to soil savings of 300 million tonne, coal savings of 22 million tonne, and a CO2 emission reduction of 70 million tonne.

Despite notifications in India stipulating use of fly ash in brick making, the country has a long way to go before it can utilise this enormous heap of waste.

Among the other alternatives discussed was the porotherm brick, produced by Bengaluru-based firm Weinberger India Private Limited – made from desilting dead water tanks and locally available industrial waste.

Chandra Bhushan pointed out: “In this quest for alternatives, it is also important to keep in mind the cost – affordability will be a key issue in countries where the majority are still searching for a proper roof over their heads.”