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Bricks in Nepal start out as mud in a valley floor which is dug out by a man, woman or child using a hand tool. The use of use of child labor, poor working conditions and low wages in Nepal's brick making industry are being challenged by the
Brick Clean Network.
The mud gets packed into a wooden mold with a brand name in it, and then slapped out as a brick and dried in the sun in a row or stack. One person can mold around 1,000 bricks per day. If he/she's paid 50 paisa (half a rupee) per brick, he/she makes 500 rupees per day, or about seven US dollars.
After the bricks get cooked in those kilns with the big smokestacks featured in some of the above photos, they're trucked all over the country, and then carried in woven basket backpacks to their final destinations, where masons build houses and courtyard walls out of them.
...and some bricks just languish in piles until they return to the dust whence they came.
Click here to read a news story I wrote about bricks and other building materials being recycled by a building demolition company in Indiana.
Chase:
ReplyDeleteThe environmental science interest is showing through in Nepal. Bravo!
If I am in Goshen in a few weeks I'm going to go over to the Western Rubber site to see if the brick activity covered in your Elkhart Truth article is still underway. Some memorabilia from that Western Rubber site have made it to the Elkhart County antique/collectible outlets. These objects (phenolic ashtrays and whatnot) are over 50 years old, which is a sort of informal standard of antique status. We're not talking Greek statuary and Ming Dynasty pottery here. (I wear a Fossil watch to remind myself of my elderly status). Meanwhile, keep up the creative reportage and the world-class photography.--Merle