Adoption of Soil Conservative Measures in Manufacturing Clay Bricks

Soils are the one of the vulnerable resources in the world due to the Climate change, Land degradation and Biodiversity loss. Increased Urbanisation and Industrialisation in developing countries has created a huge demand for construction activities, which in turn has resulted in the fast growth of the brick-making industries established in agricultural lands. Unscrupulous promotion of top-soil for brick-making leads to severe scarcity of fertile soils for agriculture in long run. This study is the part of the research, carried in one of the major clusters of Clay brick clamps in East Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh in India. The Machavaram cluster is 40 km away from district headquarters Kakinada city in India. A detailed survey conducted by interacting with the brick clamp owners, land owners, technicians, skilled workers of clamps and farmers surrounding the clamp. This study quantifies the potential depletion of soil resources due to removal of top-soil for brick-making in the reporting area. To conserve the soil resources, it is proposed to use admixtures at suitable proportions with brick clay to reduce clay content in fired-clay bricks. It is possible to use coal, biomass ash as a raw material to replace clay, and Rice husk as internal fuel in the brick making clay. This paper discusses the need for Resource efficient bricks (REBs) such as perforated or hollow clay fired products in the present brick industry set-up, to reduce clay consumption. Due to varying the proportion of admixtures, quantity of soil saved and area of land conserved is assessed and reported.