How bricks are stacked impacts air quality in Bangladesh : Goats and Soda : NPR

During the dry winter months in Bangladesh, thousands of workers shovel millions of tons of coal into kilns across the country. As columns of hand-packed bricks bake and harden, dark plumes of smoke pour out of more than 8,000 smokestacks that mark the skyline of both rural and urban areas.

“It’s a lot of black smoke, impacting the workers and nearby villagers, but also the overall air quality of the region,” said Sameer Maithel, an engineer with Greentech Knowledge Solutions, a consulting firm in Delhi, India.

Bangladesh’s air consistently ranks among the most polluted on Earth. Brick kilns contribute anywhere from 10 to 40% of the tiny particles that make up that pollution. Those particles can enter our lungs and even our bloodstream, causing health problems, including respiratory diseases, stroke and even cognitive problems.

But something as simple as stacking the bricks a different way could put a<