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 By Kristen George
CHERAW — For centuries, people have been harvesting rich, red clay and baking it to produce one of nature’s heftiest and most environmentally sound building materials: the brick.
The cinnamon-colored earth use in brick-making is plentiful in the Carolinas, where about 20% of U.S. bricks are produced. Comprised of self-sustaining raw materials and producing little waste, bricks can easily be manufactured with Mother Nature’s best interests in mind.
For Palmetto Brick Co., caring for the environment isn’t simply a healthy business practice; it’s been a way of life for nearly 90 years.
When J.L. Anderson founded his brick company along the Pee Dee River in the Upstate in 1919, he couldn’t have imagined homes being covered with vinyl siding. And he probably couldn’t have fathomed the effects of factory emissions polluting the atmosphere or runoff from sewage or landfills contaminating the rivers, lakes and oceans.
This, of course, is the reality for Anderson’s descendents now at the helm of the family business. While brick is an eco-friendly product in that it reduces energy consumption by holding heat inside in the winter and helps keep it outside during the warmer months, Palmetto Brick takes extra measures to ensure the company’s production methods are environmentally sound.
 Andy Rogers
From start to finish, the company uses eco-friendly practices in its manufacturing process. To start with, the bulk raw material comes directly from land near the company. Rogers estimates that Palmetto Brick uses the least amount of hauling of raw materials of, perhaps, any company in the country.
The clay itself is an abundant, renewable resource. Supplementary additives include feldspathic sand and fly ash, both of which are post-industrial waste products. Feldspathic sand is a byproduct of the mining of lithium and fly ash, or cinders, a waste product of burnt coal.
Once blended and formed, the bricks are then fired using natural gas. Palmetto Brick has installed a high-tech filtration system that cleans the plant’s emissions before they are released into the air. The only waste that is generated is the filings from the bricks, which are essentially dirt and are returned to the earth.
 The entire process, Rogers said, is much cleaner, greener and more efficient than manufacturing other materials, including vinyl siding.
“You wouldn’t want to live next to a vinyl plant, but you’d have no problems living next to our plant,” Roger said.
While the cost of brick is higher than that of vinyl or wood, Rogers said the benefits drastically outweigh the cost. First of all, Rogers pointed out, insurance companies often offer reduced rates since brick has been proven to be a safer and sturdier building material than wood or vinyl. In addition, upkeep and maintenance on brick homes is drastically lower than other homes.
“It never needs painting—which is also better for the environment—and unlike vinyl, which winds up in a landfill, it doesn’t need to be replaced,” Rogers said. “We guarantee our brick for 100 to 150 years. From a green standpoint, brick is so resourceful in that it is so clean and so simple. It’s really one of the cleanest products you can put on a house, which makes us feel good about being good stewards to the earth.”
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