THIS is apropos the article ‘Clearing the air: the Indo-Pak battle to breath’ (April 25) which discussed three topics — crop burning, brick kiln industry and Indus Waters Treaty — in relation to their impact on the air quality of the subcontinent.

Of the first two, which were dubbed as low-hanging fruit, the brick kiln industry plays a major role in air pollution, particularly in Pakistan. There are more than 18,000 brick kilns in Pakistan, with about 90 per cent of them being in Punjab and Sindh, producing about 45 billion bricks every year, making it the third largest brick producer in South Asia, behind India and Bangladesh.

Coal is a major source of fuel for brick kilns. However, mostly cheaper materials are used for firing the bricks, such as waste plastic material, discarded material of rubber and leather products as well as medical waste.

Brick kilns emit various kinds of air pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury, arsenic, chromium, lead and cadmium. These cause adverse effects on human health and contribute to the air pollution as well as to the long-term issues of global warming and climate change.

Though there are strict directions of the Supreme Court of Pakistan to install environment-friendly zigzag technology in brick kilns in addition to a Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) crackdown on brick kilns causing environmental pollution in the province, ground reality suggests the level of environmental pollution is not going down.

The situation paints a dismal picture and suggests that hardly five per cent or less of the plants have made the switchover, mostly in Punjab and Islamabad. The reluctance on the part of the plant-owners to go for zigzag technology in place of the traditional fixed-chimney Bull’s trench kiln method stems from the possibility of incurring huge financial burden, despite the fact that the said technology is not only environment-friendly, but also process-efficient.

When it comes to the problem of air pollution, exacerbated by brick kiln smoke in both Pakistan and India, ‘crossing over from one country to another’ is, technically speaking, not an authenticated statement owing to dual effect of the variable smoke chemistry and its characteristics as well as typical atmospheric systems and their limitations.

The bottom line is that the functioning of unregulated brick kiln industry must be regulated for the greater good of all concerned, particularly in Sindh in terms of the boiler feed being cleaner fuel rather than the one that is a pollution-spreader.

Dr Abdul Rehman Memon
Jamshoro

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2021