SA Affordable Housing March - April 2019 // Issue: 75 | Page 19

FEATURES
of firing energy, with some using petrol or diesel to pump
water. Very rarely is any form of electrical energy used on site.
Relative to the formal sector, where production is not
dictated to by weather, the informal sector uses a
significantly higher amount of energy 3.33MJ/kg compared
the formal sector’s 2.97MJ/Kg. The cost of purchasing
energy sources are estimated by those surveyed to be as
high as four fifths of the cost of production.
Due to the small size of operations informal brickmakers
are excluded from air pollution or emissions monitoring so
numbers are hard to come by, but with the majority of
energy supplied by coal there is little doubt that
collectively it is unlikely to meet acceptable levels.
Additionally, according to the report there is very little to no
awareness around the issue of air quality with only 26% of
respondents indicating that authorities had ever visited
them, and then it was usually about water and not about air
quality. Only 17% of respondents suggested that they
would want to learn more about this topic.
While there is a far stronger hope among informal
brickmakers to learn about water resources and how to use
them efficiently, according to the report none of the sites
visited could indicate how much water is used and the majority
said they used water that is pumped from rivers or streams.
‘The producers find that obtaining water for production is
a challenge, but it is clear from the visits by authorities, as
well as land degradation and subsequent erosion around
water sources, rivers and streams, that this portion of the
sector has a negative impact on the environment, more
pointedly, regarding water sustainability,’ states the report.
"This isn’t going away and
people and the environment
are suffering as a result."
Regarding waste, without any form of mechanical crushing
both the green waste as well as fired waste that runs at
around 20% is mostly left in piles to degrade naturally as
production areas move. There is some evidence that waste,
such as macadamia shells from other waste streams is
burned on site as a source of energy in a form of waste
symbiosis. Sewerage waste treatment, plant water and
sludge are also used and in one instance biomass in the
form of chicken and cow manure was added.
According to Volsteedt the unplanned and uncoordinated
digging that takes place at an informal brickwork is
probably the greatest threat to the environment.
“Soil takes thousands of years to develop properly. Just
like water our soil should belong to everyone, but a lot of it
is lost to informal brickmakers who dig through it to reach
the clay beneath with little regard for its own value,” he says.
The report states, ‘Even though soil erosion from poor
agricultural practices is evident at a large scale in these
rural areas, the contribution towards loss of agricultural
land and siltation of water ways from the clay brick
production activities must be significant.’
“Usually you would look at a tiny niche industry like this
(they only make up about 5% of the total clay brick