The Scourge of Brick Factories

The "gothic" title of this post is an UNDERSTATEMENT. These "factories" are warts of Hell, the vents opening to the evil ones bellow ground...
Seriously though: the Tuesday on the ridge above Bhaktapur OPENED my eyes for the problem. My lungs and nose were "OPENED" long time ago, the "infernal" smell of "inferior" coal started wafting around Bhaktapur about 2 years ago. Till then I thought this PLAGUE was confined in the West and mostly, as anyone landing at Tribhuvaqn Airport during daytime can attest, in the South of this Sacred Valley. Alas that sacrality you have to take with a pinch of salt: the "holy" Baghmati river snaking through Boudha, Kathmandu and Pathan is worse than the worst 'klong' I've seen in Thailand, with the added touch that there is no water, only the SHIT!
But the kilns take the CAKE! Not only are they responsible for 30% of air-pollution (conservatively), what is worse is their long-term effects on the ecology of the Valley. The production methods used are so primitive one wants to cringe. These factories take over square kilometers of prime agricultural land, using only the topsoil (I gues the organic matter within the soil helps to bind in the absence of quality coal and higher burning temperatures)!
My family's at least 5 generations back in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire were burning bricks, both in Moravia and Slovakia. As a kid, after the communists 'stole' our factory (my uncles like slaves were compelled to work there - sounds familiar to the peasants of Dang?), I spent all my holidays there, running wheelbarrows as teenager with heavy, wet bricks from the pressing machine, to make a few 'crowns'. I know a thing or two about this business.
My uncles always worked hard in the winter: in the hill behind the machine shed they prepared the earth for the spring and summer. This was dangerous - in order to save some heavy work they cut 'overhangs' in the frozen slope and then deftly cut avalanches the size of a house with few strokes of a pick. What a thrill to watch this for a small boy!
That's the secret (one of many) - you use a HILL! I've never seen surface destruction like this, expect in Northern Bohemia with strip-coal mining. Must say though the moon-landscape there WAS WORSE, LARGER - in one of those 'craters' there could easily fit the whole Valley! (Yes, with the help of EU it's BEEING cleaned, take some years more, but it's HAPPENING.)
Another thing is these sham chimneys. As it could help that you replace a 5 m shitty little sheet-metal chimney with 15 m brick one? Are you nuts? The only one chimney in the Valley which can be said CAN DISPERSE the pollutants above the surrounding mountains is in ... Bhaktapur! Yep, the Chinese Brick Factory, with it's ca 80 m high chimney, symbol of mismanagemnt of the bygone panchayati era. It's supreme irony that this factory with world-class technology (in it's prime!) is ... SHUT DOWN! How symbolic...
Seen yesterday Kunda Dixit, Editor of Nepali Times, and he'll make a stinking story out of it!