5 Novel Ways to Combat Air Pollution

While air pollution is yet to be named as a cause of death on anyone’s death certificate, it is contributing to the premature loss of life for millions of people across the world.

In our six-part blog post series, we’ve been looking at some of the most novel and impressive ways people are combating air pollution. This post, the final in the series, will give a brief overview of each solution.

1. The Smog Free Project

Daan Roosegaarde and his team started the Smog Free Project with the hopes of reducing air pollution around the world. The Smog Free Tower is their initial invention, which works by sucking in outdoor air, removing the harmful pollution particulates and releasing fresh, clean air back into the surrounding area.

The Smog Free Ring is a tangible souvenir made out of the smog collected from the towers. Their latest project, the Smog Free Bicycle is under development in China. The bike, inspired by the mantra ray, works by inhaling polluted air, cleaning it and exhaling the clean air around the cyclist.

2. CityTrees

CityTrees are a block of moss cultures that filter pollutants out of the air. Installed in many of Europe’s major cities, CityTrees work with a combination of biotechnology and IoT technology. The technologically advanced ‘trees’ are installed in busy city areas and absorb the harmful particulates from the air and integrate them into their own biomass.

Each tree has integrated sensors that monitor the pollution levels around the tree, sharing data with other systems to keep the CityTrees healthy and performing optimally.

3. Kaalink

MIT graduate, Anirudh Sharma, invented a novel way to make use of the harmful carbon emissions that come from the burning of fossil fuels. A generator can be fitted to the exhaust pipe of your vehicle, where it will capture carbon emissions and convert the black smoke into usable and affordable printing ink.

Not only will this invention reduce the amount of carbon being released into the air, it will reduce the amount of ink needing to be produced, which is a costly and harmful process.

4. Roof Tiles

A group of students from the University of California have discovered an effective and cost-friendly way to reduce the amount of nitrogen oxides in the air. The students successfully created a roof coating out of titanium dioxide (TiO2) that can absorb and break down almost all of the nitrogen oxides in the air.

If applied to one average-sized residential roof, the coating could break down an amount of nitrogen oxides in a year equivalent to that produced by a car driving 11,000 miles. Even better, the cost to coat one roof costs only $5, around £3, so it’s affordable as well as effective.

5. City Centre Vehicle Bans

Air pollution isn’t a problem that’s going away any time soon, and cities around the world have began to take notice. Many of the world’s major countries have implemented vehicle bans in their busiest cities and have plans to ban all petrol and diesel cars in the coming years.

Delhi, Freiburg, Copenhagen and London are amongst those making changes, reducing traffic flow on the roads and increasing those using bikes and public transport.

Reducing air pollution

With air pollution causing so much damage to our health and the environment, the time to change is now. Making even the smallest of changes can help to keep our air clean, whether that’s walking to work once a week or investing in an electric vehicle. Read more about the effects of pollution on the environment in the article, ‘New Four-Year Scientific Analysis: Systemic Pesticides Pose Global Threat to Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’.