While our capital city and much of the country has urbanized, this relentless and unchecked nature of such expansion has come at a steep, often overlooked cost - the unchecked proliferation of brick kilns that continue to poison not just our air but our soil and also our future.
Just recently, the evidence of this was in full effect in Chittagong, where hundreds of farmers in Fatikchhari and Hathazari upazilas have to watch their toil and labour wither under the cloud of toxic smoke as a result of the close to 100 brick kilns in the area - most if not all of which have been set up illegally. Crops -- tomatoes, brinjals, cucumbers, and others -- become stunted, dust-choked, and unsellable.
For a nation already struggling with high food prices and with the threat of food insecurity always prevalent, it is simply unacceptable that our very source of life - our agriculture sector - is being threatened by these brick kilns.
The impunity enjoyed by the owners of these brick kilns is truly staggering; regardless of the administration in charge and despite laws prohibiting kilns within one kilometre of farmland, enforcement of these laws is negligible as they continue to not only survive but thrive, encroaching upon lands and spewing their lethal cocktail of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and black carbon into the air.
While we have seen the occasional crackdown by the Department of Environment, they are simply not enough. For the sake of our future health, it is time we collectively reached a consensus that these illegal and polluting brick kilns have no place in our country and that we must shift towards sustainable construction alternatives.
Our future cannot be built on bricks that destroy.
