Up to 49 of Islamabad’s 63 traditional brick kilns, which created chokehold air pollution, have been converted to zig-zag technology, according to senior climate change and environmental coordination officer Muhammad Saleem.
The official said four old brick kilns were removed and eight air-polluting ones are being rebuilt with greener zig-zag technology.
Senior ministry official and media spokeswoman Muhammad Saleem said plain brick causes chokehold air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and harmful black carbon emissions. Brick kilns employ rubber, coal, and shoe bottoms. He claimed greener brick kilns’ zigzag technology will reduce lung-choking carbon emissions by 60% and energy costs by 30%.
“It’s a great milestone that the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency-Islamabad (Pak-EPA-Islamabad) and the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination (MoCC&EC) have achieved with well-coordinated efforts despite various bottlenecks to fight the escalating problem of air pollution in the capital city and its rural areas,” Saleem said. The Islamabad administration and other parties backed the groups.
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Though most of the capital city’s air-polluting brick kilns were rural, zig-zag upgrades would purify nearby cities’ air. The ministry’s media spokesperson called old brick-making polluting and unsafe. FCBTKs in Pakistan and South Asia bake handcrafted bricks. The dirtiest brick-making method causes deforestation, air pollution, climate change, cardiovascular and respiratory ailments, and land use difficulties.
Ministry official Muhammad Saleem noted that the sector’s air pollutants, which may include sulfur oxides, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide (CO2), particulate matter (PM) like black carbon, and compounds released by burning coal and other fuels, are hard to identify due to their traditional kiln types. and
Black carbon, which makes up brick-kiln soot, comes from incomplete biomass and fossil fuel burning. It affects climate change 460–1500 times more than CO2.
Traditional brick kilns, autos, and industries create black smoke that harms the environment and people, the ministry official said. Pollutes the eyes and lungs. Eye, asthma, and lung diseases develop from black smoke. “The federal ministry introduced zig-zag technology to mitigate toxic black carbons that cause smog and air pollution in the federal capital and rural areas,” said climate change and environmental coordination ministry media spokesperson Muhammad Saleem.
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