Clay Brick: Life Cycle Assessment

1. Extraction: Clay is mined from clay quarries. Transport of clay is minimal given that brick manufacturing facilities neighbor quarry locations. Manpower and mining machinery are both necessary. Water is also necessary during the mining process as it is used for controlling dust and for processing clay prior to shipping. Water may or may not be reused for these two purposes. If not, an estimate of 2,000 gallons of water is used to produce one ton of clay brick. Fossil fuels are released during the mining process, however the mining of clay has less of a negative impact than other types of mining.

2. Manufacturing: A pugmill grinds and mixes clay and water. The mixture is then funneled by an auger through a die. Eventually, the soft beam of clay and water is cut by wires into bricks which are then textured before the drying process. Excess heat from kilns dries the bricks before they are fired at 300-400 degrees F. After cooling off, they are packaged into large cubes of 500. The cubes are then kept in inventory before being shipped off. Little of the clay mixture is wasted through this process, but greenhouse gas emissions are higher than other                                                                           industries because the firing process includes both                                                                 electricity and natural gases.

3. Construction/Assembly: This part usually entails a hand-in-hand relationship with bricks and mortar. A scant 5% of waste comes from bricks and a larger 25% comes from mortar. Brick waste can be salvaged and reused. Necessary components for building brick walls include manpower, scaffolding, mortar-mixing machines, and hand trowels.

4. Maintenance/Repair: Generally, brick load-bearing walls are low-maintenance for decades until hairline cracks or deteriorating mortar are evident. The repair for mortar or disassembling bricks requires skilled craftsmen, new mortar, and new bricks. Eventually, a repeat process of the original construction and its necessary components will be required.

5. End of Life/Disposal: Bricks can last for centuries, occasionally requiring love and care. If not recycled as bricks, they are downcycled to aggregate or sometimes disposed of and sent to landfills.