benefits and costs of the informal sector the case of brick kilns in bangladesh非正式部门的收益和成本的情况下在孟加拉砖窑.pdfVIP

Journal of Environmental Protection, 2012, 3, 476-484 /10.4236/jep.2012.36058 Published Online June 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/jep) Benefits and Costs of the Informal Sector: The Case of Brick Kilns in Bangladesh * Lelia Croitoru , Maria Sarraf World Bank, Washington DC, USA. * Email: lcroitoru@ Received March 29th, 2012; revised April 23rd, 2012; accepted May 24th, 2012 ABSTRACT In developing countries, the informal sector—brick kilns, leather tanning, food processing factories—is often highly polluting, causing countless deaths and illnesses. This paper presents the case of brick kilns in Dhaka, one of the most polluted cities in Asia. Five months per year, brick kilns are the city’s main source of fine particulate pollution, ac- counting for 38 percent of total fine particulate mass. The paper values the impacts of existing and alternative brick kiln technologies in Dhaka city. Through a Cost-Benefit Analysis, it estimates the net returns for the entrepreneur, and the social costs, such as health impacts from air pollution and damages due to carbon emissions from kilns. It shows that cleaner technologies are more attractive than traditional technologies both from the private and social perspective, and provides concrete recommendations for a cleaner brick sector in Bangladesh. Keywords: Cost-Benefit Analysis; Air Pollution 1. Introduction 3 percent over the next decade [6]. Despite this importance, the vast majority of kilns use The informal sector—small-scale, unlicensed and virtu- outdated, energy intensive technologies that are highly ally unregulated firms—is important for the economies