A 23-foot smog-free tower has been built in Beijing, China, to purify the city’s polluted air, which is considered to be the deadliest air in the world, according to CNN.
The idea for the tower was conceived by Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde in 2013 after he visited the city and noticed the thick smog.
According to Roosegaarde, the tower sends positive ions into the air and sucks in pollution particles. The particles then attach themselves to a negatively charged surface, and vents flush out the clean air.
“It’s the largest smog vacuum cleaner in the world,” Roosegaarde said in an article published online Sept. 30 by CNN. “Since we installed it in Beijing, the tower has collected daily as much smog as it did over two weeks in the Netherlands (where the prototype was made).”
Junior Cloris Huang is from Shenyang, China, a city approximately seven and a half hours from Beijing.
“The air [in Shenyang] is not good because it is a big city and is focused on manufacturing,” Huang said. “Most of the time the pollution isn’t that heavy. You can see the blue sky; (it’s) just not that blue. The blue is grey. Most places the sky isn’t as blue as it is [in Searcy].”
Huang said she wears a mask a couple of times a year when the pollution is particularly heavy.
According to ABC News, the level of air pollution in China has reached nearly 50 times over World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended level. WHO considers 25 micrograms of polluted particles per cubic meter safe. However, Shenyang, China, had reached 1,157 micrograms in 2015.
“I feel (building the tower) is a good thing,” Huang said. “At least they’re trying to do something with the air pollution and trying to protect the environment or to protect humanity itself.”
Roosegaarde has also designed smog-free rings, cubes and cufflinks from the compressed smog particles collected by the tower, according to his website, studioroosegaarde.net. By purchasing one of these items, 1,000 cubic meters of clean air is donated to the city.
“I believe we should act now and do more, not less, in order to make modern cities livable again,” Roosegaarde said. “Smog-Free Project is the beginning of a journey to create solutions together towards smarter and brighter cities.”
