Cleaner brick kilns cut pollution, but gains did not reach workers, research finds

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Relatively simple changes to the way traditional brick kilns operate in Bangladesh can reduce pollution, save fuel and improve the quality of bricks they produce. But research has found that those productivity gains did not translate into better conditions for the people doing the work.

The findings come from a multiyear research effort involving Nina Brooks, assistant professor at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability and affiliate faculty member of the Center for South Asian Studies. The research began with a question: Could an industry essential to Bangladesh's rapid urban growth, but also a major source of air pollution, become cleaner without requiring kiln owners to make expensive investments in new technology? The answer was encouraging.

But it led to a harder question: If cleaner production also makes businesses more productive and profitable, do workers share in those gains? In the short term, the researchers found, they did not. Bangladesh is the world's fourth-largest brick producer.

Approximately 8,000 traditional kilns supply more than 90% of the country's domestic brick consumption. Brickmaking is also associated with substantial carbon emissions and fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, which contributes to a global public health crisis. Ambient air pollution is responsible for 4.9 million premature deaths globally, but 32% of those deaths occur in South Asia.

For Brooks, the research is the culmination of about eight years of work that began during her doctoral studies. Along with her collaborators, she first worked to understand the industry itself, mapping kilns using satellite imagery and machine learning, examining regulation and studying health effects on communities living downwind. That work also revealed the limitations of regulating where brick kilns can be established alone.

"Bangladesh is one of the world's most densely populated countries," Brooks said. "It is not feasible to move brick kilns away from all schools, health facilities and urban centers that may be harmed by the pollution." The researchers began looking instead at whether existing kilns could operate more efficiently. Working with kiln owners, managers and workers, the team introduced a set of relatively modest operational changes.