SandStories invited Sheikh Rokon to share his commentary on Bangladesh's recent switch from polluting clay-fired bricks to concrete-based bricks that are presented as 'eco-friendly' bricks within the country. This blog is best read in context. Please see external resources below. Cover Image: khurshid _alam, Pixabay

Greening the brick industry is imperative for Bangladesh. As 'concretized culture' spreads speedily across the country, bricks have become one of the most consumed commodities even in the village areas which have been almost fully dependent only on nature-based materials for the houses for centuries. Apart from mega infrastructure like highways, flyovers, metro rail, big bridges, hundred and thousands of local roads and culverts have been built across the country in the last two decades. Earthen roads, wooden bridges have been converted to concrete structures. Bricks are the main ingredient of this 'development'.

There are around 7,000 registered brickfields in Bangladesh, according to the Department of Environment. The number is definitely higher than 10,000 as many of them are operated without following the registration process. Thus the country produces 22.71 billion pieces of bricks annually, according to a report of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). A World Bank report says, the brick kiln sector consumes 3.5 million tonnes of coal and 1.9 million tonnes of firewood which emits 9.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gas annually.

Producing conventional fired bricks not only pollutes the air and causes deforestation but is also problematic because these bricks are made of topsoil which is generally extracted from fields. Brickfields across the country are increasingly destroying arable lands. So greening the brick production process is the only solution to save our air, forest reserves and agriculture.

With green groups and organizations, the Bangladesh government itself has been rightly advocating for the alternative to conventional kiln-fired bricks. The Housing and Building Research Institute (HBRI), an institute under the Ministry of Housing and Public Works, is advocating for 4-5 types of bricks. Such as CSEB, Interlocking Block, Thermal Block, Concrete Hollow Block. Recently amended The Brick Manufacturing and Brick Kiln Establishment (Control) (Amendment) Act, 2019 also specifies one type of brick in its article 5/C as 'Hollow Block'. As a result of all the advocacy, 'new brick' kilns are being established. Some of them are already in production, like in Dinajpur district, Narshingdi District, Thakurgaon District in Bangladesh. The irony is that all these 'eco-friendly' bricks are not necessarily 'green'.

To provide some historical context, the Brick Manufacturing and Brick Kiln Establishment (Control) Act, 2013 was amended in February 2019 in the Jatiya Sangsad or the National Parliament of Bangladesh responding to the demand of green brick advocates. But it was not amended in the way it was expected. As far as rivers are concerned, one of the major changes has had several 'negative' impacts.

In article 5/B of the previous version of that act, extracting soil from a 'filled up' pond or canal or wetland or oxbow lake or seasonal flow or lake or rivers, or haor (vast wetland) or char land (landmass emerged from deltaic river bed) was prohibited 'without the permission from the proper authority'. Depending on the context, the 'Proper authority' could go up to the National River Conservation Commission, NRCC, which was declared as the 'guardian' for the rivers and other water bodies by the highest court of the country, the Supreme Court. But interestingly, the court’s verdict coincides with the law amendment too; both came out in February 2019.

Ever since then, the Bangladesh government has made use of so-called ‘eco-friendly’ bricks for public construction. It was announced that state-run agencies would use ‘eco-friendly’ bricks to build or repair the roads, buildings, and other concrete works. The Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Ministry had issued a notice in November 2019 targeting 10 percent usage of ‘eco-friendly’ bricks by the 2019-20 fiscal year. It was to increase by 100 percent by the year 2024-25. But things were not going to plan. The country should have achieved at least 30 percent use of eco-friendly bricks by this fiscal year, 2021-22. But, as a daily newspaper, The Business Standard, reported recently, according to the Bangladesh Concrete Block Association, only 13 percent of the target had been achieved. That is obviously another issue.

But the change in law has become a kind of calamity, at least from a riverine perspective. According to the latest version of the law, permission is needed only from the District Commissioner (DC) to extract soil from riverbeds or wetlands to make bricks. The amendment has made extracting sands for the brick kiln from rivers extremely easy. Because it is the DCs who are the chief government officers responsible for allowing or not applying the law in the cases of indiscriminate sand mining in the river across the country. Sand mining from rivers has been permitted by a previous act 'Sand Quarry and Soil Management Bill 2010' in Bangladesh. Under that act, district administrations can lease out portions of a river for sand mining. There are some measures in that act to protect biodiversity, ecology, fisheries etc., but sand miners do not comply with the law. They extract sands indiscriminately. Sometimes they even don't bother with getting permits. The High Court division of the Bangladesh Supreme Court has issued directives to stop sand mining several times, but the sand miners seem unstoppable.

In a way, this amendment has worsened the deterioration of the sand mining situation in the country. Sands from rivers are already being extracted for 'eco-friendly' brick kilns which are in production. Hundreds of rivers of Bangladesh are now under erosion, biodiversity losses, and pollution due to indiscriminate sand mining. Particularly some of the small rivers have lost the natural structure of the riverbed. It is adversely impacting the cropping and inhabitation patterns of communities across the country. Almost every day, news outlets are publishing grim pictures of river erosion due to sand mining. Indiscriminate sand mining has already become the single biggest threat to the rivers of Bangladesh. Large-scale river dredging for the production of 'eco-friendly' bricks will definitely worsen the situation.

We are really concerned about the potential environmental and ecological damages to the rivers from using river sand for ‘eco-friendly brick’ production. Air pollution is definitely a matter of concern for Bangladesh and the traditional fired brick kiln is one of the major factors responsible for it. But in a deltaic country, rivers are not only the main feature of nature, but they also contribute hugely to carbon sequestration too. Thus healthy rivers control air pollution as well. I think killing rivers for clean air will harm the environment, either way. We need eco-friendly bricks, but never at the cost of rivers.

External Resources:

• https://www.thethirdpole.net/en/pollution/could-bangladeshs-eco-bricks-do-more-harm-than-good/