With its 163 million-strong population, Bangladesh is in the midst of a construction boom and with that expansion comes a need for cheap construction materials. Such high demand has lead brickmaking to thrive. However, despite attempt at regulations, the brick-making industry is still a major source of pollution and its workers are subjected to incredibly perilous conditions. Almost all bricks are made by hand, brick by brick, it is a human factory.
While some workers are extracting mud, others are transporting it to the brick makers, molding the bricks, burning them and at the end, balancing as many as sixteen lose bricks in two piles on top of their head. The entire process is done with workers wearing their own clothes, and no special protective gear of any sort. They are constantly breathing an irritating red dust, hours on end. All this done for about $25-30/week depending on the worker’s speed. And the dust is not the only environmental challenge. The ovens used to bake the bricks are heated using coal, which is also carried by workers using baskets on their head. With the primitive balancing act involved, of course many bricks are damaged, but nothing is wasted here. The broken bricks are smashed into tiny pieces to be converted into sand, another material in short supply in Bangladesh. Although the output yields building material for a low monetary cost, there is clearly a high price being paid by the workers, local residents, and the environment.
