Going green: Punjab kilns try trading off firewood for LPG

The switch is regarded as a pro-environment move that will also be more cost-effective for the brick industry

LAHORE:

Following Punjab’s successful switch from pollutant-heavy brick kilns to greener Zigzag kilns, the province is now experimenting with the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as a replacement for burning firewood.

It is expected that the tradeoff would not only reduce environmental pollution that comes with burning wood but would also prove to be more economical for kiln owners, saving millions in one season.

The new method has been experimentally applied to a brick kiln in the Kasur district, which like other traditional furnaces, had been relying on burning dry wood and coal to cook bricks. “Temperature in a furnace needs to rise to 500 to 600 degrees to be able to cook bricks.

This means that up to 300 to 400 maunds of wood go into keeping a traditional furnace burning for a year. As wood becomes harder to procure and prices continue to climb, furnace owners are forced to spend upwards of Rs0.3 million to keep their kilns lit, which is really affecting the industry,” Kiln Owners Association Secretary-General Mehr Abdul Haq, adding that his association has already switched to LPG with the help of The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

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Per Haq, experts were called in from Nepal to train local kiln workers for the use of the new, greener fuel. “Now, kilns which required an extortionate amount of wood run on eight to ten commercial size LPG cylinders, costing just Rs40,000 to Rs50,000 a year. The switch has proven to be more cost-effective and beneficial for the industry and the environment,” he added.

Where the switch to Zigzag kilns has been hailed as an environmentally conscious move, for traditional kiln owners however it meant that they had to spend more on blowers to expedite the burning of coal. According to experts, the switch to LPG would also mean that kiln owners would no longer need to invest in blowers costing Rs500,000 to 600,000.

Rana Subhan, owner of a brick kiln in Lahore, says he and his fellow kiln owners have started noticing the benefit of replacing LPG with wood and are looking forward to adopting the greener fuel. “This will not affect the price of bricks but will be cheaper to transport.

If the entire industry switches to LPG, the end of firewood-dependency would also mean that fewer trees have to be cut down, which could aid the problem of deforestation here,” the kiln owner opined, advocating for the new fuel.

Speaking in the same vein, Environment Secretary Syed Mubashir Hussain also regarded the switch as a revolutionary move. He believes that adopting modern methods like the use of Zigzag kilns and greener fuel options can eliminate emissions like soot, which contribute majorly to the smog that clouds this city. “In the future, we will also try to cut down on our dependency on fossil fuels and move towards renewable energy sources, like the rest of the developed world.

It will require the contribution of all our scientific, technical and managerial skills, but we are dedicated to the cause and think it is the only permanent solution for environmental degradation,” he told The Express Tribune.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2022.