Fast fashion contributes to the flaming kilns in Cambodia, where labourers pass out from the heat
Every day,Chantrea drags an electric fan the size of a huge door into the airless office.
That is the only relief she gets from the intense heat inside the brick kiln, which is more akin to a darkly lighted tomb.
The 47-year-old describes her experience stacking the dry bricks, which will be transported to a warehouse, as “like working inside a burning prison.” “I’ve requested that the owners provide us additional fans. However, since it will cost more money, they won’t.
The fan she does have whirs into operation after first making a sluggish, clanking sound. It hardly produces any wind.
At what point is it too hot to work? Here, in Cambodia’s brick kilns, where labourers endure some of the harshest working conditions on earth thanks in part to fast fashion leftovers, experts have discovered the answer to this issue.
Several employees told the HHM news that they sweat so much during the day that it seems like they’re in a hot bath. It’s also typical for them to faint, maybe from dehydration. They have altered their names out of fear of retaliation from their workplaces.
Researchers have attempted to record the effects of this prolonged exposure to intense heat on workers’ health in a first-of-its-kind study.
Special sensors recorded the core temperature of 30 workers at these kilns over a week and showed that they all had heat stress, or core temperatures of more than 38C. This can cause fatigue, dizziness, nausea and headaches.
A healthy body temperature usually ranges from 36.1C to 37.2C. Body temperature over 38C is symptomatic of a fever. Some workers had core temperatures of 40C, which can lead to heat stroke, resulting in convulsions, eventual loss of consciousness and even death, if not treated early.
One employee disclosed to the researchers that the heat had caused him to experience cardiac failure. However, he eventually went back to work because it was the only source of income he was aware of.
Climate change and Cambodia’s unique weather only exacerbate this; in May of last year, the country saw its hottest-ever May temperature of 41.6C. For the tens of thousands of brick kiln workers around Asia, even a slight rise in temperature might spell the difference between life and death as global temperatures surge.
One of the main storylines I keep hearing is that everyone is affected by climate change together. However, that is wholly untrue. The study’s author, Laurie Parsons of Royal Holloway University, stated, “Some of us are a lot more in it than others.”
garments with harmful traces
Outside the kiln, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, it’s a muggy afternoon. It is stuffy inside, where Chantrea is piling bricks.
Her sole defence against the intense heat and dust is the clothing that hangs off her petite frame, covering her entire body. She gets blisters on her skin if the bricks are too hot.
The actual kilns are sealed and surrounded by brick walls. Employees remain outdoors and feed wood via a hatch to maintain a fire that is high enough—typically at 1500 degrees Celsius—to set the clay bricks. After that, they quit adding fuel to the fire, and when the temperature seems to be dropping, they go inside the chamber.
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The typical temperature inside the kilns is unknown because researchers find it difficult to obtain access. It’s also difficult to estimate the number of employees who become sick or worse due to the heat.
According to Chantrea, injuries from falling bricks are not unusual. Additionally, workers reported to the UK researchers that they frequently get burned by the bricks, even through their gloves.
The father of two, Kosal, gathers a mixture of rubber, plastic, and cloth outside the kiln and swiftly closes the hatch. Children, both his and those of the other kiln workers, rush past as black smoke seeps through the gaps.
“I’m used to the smoke being black. I no longer notice it,” he declares. “I have to do this firework for a full day.” I divided the task between my spouse and me.”
The kids are crawling over bags filled to the brim with leftover clothing from Cambodia’s $6 billion garment industry—more fuel for the kiln.
However, what at first glance would seem like a way to deal with the leftover materials from the 1,300 clothing companies in the nation is actually concealing a deadly secret.
In addition to heavy metals, PVC, and resins used in the dyeing and printing processes, these remnants contain amounts of formaldehyde, ammonia, and chlorine bleach, according to a 2018 report titled “Blood Bricks” by UK academics at Royal Holloway. According to the survey, employees in brick factories also frequently complained of nosebleeds, migraines, and other ailments.
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A pile of clothes with Disney labels is skipped by a three-year-old child from Asia Kosal, whose hair is covered in dust from the record summer that burned the country. The majority are flannel pyjamas with Frozen characters Anna and Elsa stamped on them. These are designed for kids who live in chilly regions.
Strict norms of behaviour are in place at the majority of Western fashion labels to prevent this. Disney “did not condone the conditions alleged in this situation,” a spokeswoman for the firm told the BBC, adding that the corporation was looking into the claim.
Among other labels, the HHM news also discovered ones from H&M and Clarks shoes. Clarks requested other impacted companies to collaborate “in working together with the relevant authorities in Cambodia to eradicate this problem” and urged the ministry of environment in Cambodia to conduct an investigation.
While H&M admitted that traceability remains a problem in Cambodia, they added that they have their own waste management policies in place to make sure that fabric waste isn’t dumped in a landfill or used as fuel by companies.
There have long been allegations of hazardous and unjust working conditions in Cambodia’s brick kilns, which also employ some of the poorest people on the planet. As of right now, researchers claim that climate change is just making those disparities worse.
“What we need to do is to consider how climate change impacts people through the lens of labour and inequality, and recognise that labour exploitation is a major factor in the worst impacts of climate change,” Parsons said.
The trap for heat
Employees like Chantrea and Kosal are stuck in their jobs no matter how nasty or challenging they are. Locked in a heat-producing cycle, they are victims of climate change.
Farmers made up the bulk of individuals employed in Cambodia’s brick kilns. Chantrea was a rice farmer once. However, managing a single crop has become challenging due to the lack of rainfall in recent years.
“When our crops failed, we had to take out a lot of loans. But we wound ourselves deeply in debt as a result of their repeated failures,” she claims.
She was eventually forced to go to Phnom Penh in the hopes of obtaining employment to pay back the loans. The Cambodian Microfinance Association reports that out of the 10 million people in the country, more than two million had outstanding microloans. They each owing $3,320 (£1,955) on average.
Brick kilns have been able to obtain labour that is susceptible due to financial instability. The worker is bonded to the kiln in exchange for the owners offering to repay the loan.
Families as a whole are often tied to the kiln. The Cambodian government works to avoid child employment, but the HHM spotted kids helping their parents in the kiln.
“If we leave, we are afraid of being arrested and imprisoned,” Chantrea asserts. Thus, we have to fight here. We will comply with their request to go into the flames if necessary in order to earn more money for food and debt repayment.”
However, the pay is so minimal that the loan will never be paid off. Chantrea stacks about 500 bricks for 10,000 Cambodian riel (£1.92; $2.45).
She needs to pay for food, water, and electricity with this. She maintains a youngster she found abandoned on the street and adopted, living in a tin shanty on the kiln’s edge. When they’re peckish, they hunt snails together.
I have never reimbursed the owner after a number of years,” Chantrea claims. She continues, saying the debt has only grown.
The rise in building in the city has been fueled by Cambodia’s kilns. According to experts from Royal Holloway University, it has attracted foreign investors, notably the UK, which has invested one billion pounds.
However, the city is leaving behind those who contributed to its construction as Phnom Penh soars toward the sky with tower after tower of air-conditioned flats.
by,HHM