Brick Kilns in Kathmandu Towards Cleaner Technology: How Years of Research, Advocacy and Activism Worked

ABSTRACT

Almost 200 plus brick kilns operating in Kathmandu valley were regarded as one of the prime cause of particulate matter emission to valley's degrading air quality. The World Bank study in 1997 revealed that brick kilns were responsible for 28 percent of PM10 and 31 percent of TSP load in Kathmandu valley. Bull's Trench Kilns (BTK), the commonly used technology, was old, inefficient and polluting, which it was even banned in India, the place of its origin. These kilns were degrading overall quality of air in Kathmandu valley and at the same time, threatening the health of local people at the vicinity. Although it was clear that these polluting brick kilns were having both environmental as well as public health impacts, concerned agencies were not giving desired attention towards this. But civil society made a remarkable contribution to let the voice of the sufferer heard. National level NGOs, local CBOs, academic institutions and public interest organizations joined hand together to use each other’s strengths and pushed research based advocacy at policy level and activism at local level. Government then had to join hand to crackdown polluting brick kilns. In March 2002, government decided to ban the BTK technology in Kathmandu and stopped registration of new BTKs immediately. Government has also decided to start legal and administrative work to change existing BTKs towards the cleaner options and the entrepreneurs were given one and half year time for the technological shift. After the government’s decision, brick kiln entrepreneurs looked at the various environment friendly brick making technologies and donor agencies helped them to explore out new technologies. Due to the fact, some of the brick kiln entrepreneurs have adopted new technologies. Although, not all the BTKs have been switched towards cleaner option yet, till now, over 60 kilns have adopted new and less polluting technologies mainly; Fixed Chimney and Vertical Shaft Brick Kilns (VSBK). Although, no study has been carried out about the emission reduction from these new technologies, but lower stack emission from these new technologies suggest that they have made a valued contribution to reduce air pollution in the valley. This paper describes how different actors worked and shared each other’s strengths to force the government to ban polluting brick technology and make entrepreneurs to switch towards cleaner options.