More than 48,137 tonnes of wood are illegally used as fuel per month in 157 brick kilns in 10 upazilas across the district.
The use of logs pollute the environment and severely damage plantation.
The Directorate of Environment Barisal divisional office sources said only 27 of 157 brick kilns in the district were using Jig Jag Kiln system.
On the other hand 63 of the rest 130 brick kilns operate without any clearance from the DoE.
Sukumar Biswas, deputy director, DoE Barisal office, acknowledged the fact.
He said at least 48,137 tonnes of woods were used per day as fuel in the brick kilns of the district.
According to the Brick Kiln Amendment Rule 2001 and Environment Conservation Act 1995 (amended in 2010) brick kilns should not be constructed within around three kilometres of any house or crop field.
The brick ovens should not use
logs as fuel, drum or old chimneys. They must have at least 120-feet high vertical ventilation shaft, highbred Hoffman kiln, jig jag kiln and block system.
A notice on these issues was served on October 2, 2012 which asked the owners to stop operating brick kilns without the DoE clearance and convert them into modern technology-based kilns.
After visiting Sadar, Bakerganj, Ujirpur and Mehendiganj upazilas in the district it was found that many brick kilns were operating not only near human habitation and crop fields, but also near roadsides polluting environment as well as decreasing soil fertility.
Some brick kiln owners have some coal stacks near their brick ovens only to show that the hard black mineral is being used there as fuel, thus giving a legal coverage.
Many like them have set up sawmills near their brick kilns to saw log to be used as fuel.
Khan Bricks, Haji Bricks of Parmananda village, Five Star bricks at Chowdhury Hut and Mostafa Bricks at Sakrail under Ujirpur upazila were found using illegal drum-chimney and having sawmills turning wood into log for fuel.
Mohsin Brick fields in the upazila have 120-hight chimney, but use wood as fuel instead of coal.
Md Shamsuddin, a worker in Khan Bricks, claimed that every brick kiln with two-chimney needed at least 12 tonnes of woods per day and they used wood as fuel because of low cost and scarcity of costly coal.
Kaium Khan, owner of the Khan Bricks, acknowledged the fact that he was operating brick field without clearance from the DoE.
He claimed that he applied for a one-year extension to modernise the brick kiln.
The same scenarios were seen at Lengutia, Gazir Char, Char Gopalpur, Patarhut of Mehendiganj, Kobai and Nilganj of Bakerganj upazila in the district.
Prof Rafikul Islam of Barisal BM College Botany Department said burning of wood as fuel and use of less than 120-feet high chimney producing more carbon dioxide in the air had been polluting the environment and damaging plantations tremendously.
Sirajul Alam, additional director, Agriculture Extension Department, said the brick kilns turned fertile land barren, and were damaging crops in surrounding areas.
The DoE divisional director explained that they faced different types of limitations like administrative and judicial jurisdictions, lack of coordination between different government and non-government offices, manpower, transport, laboratory and equipment shortages to operate drives against the illegal brick kilns.
Asaduzaman Khasru, president of Barisal Brick Kilns Owners’ Association, said: “We should not ignore the rising demand for bricks in development works.”
He described the brick kilns as bona fide sectors for the government to earn huge revenues.