The bikes designed by Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde would suck in polluted air, using positive ionization to purify it, before releasing it into the atmosphere. Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde has announced the next phase of his Smog Free Project: a bike that sucks in polluted air and releases purified air in a cloud around the cyclist.
Anti-Smog Bikes
According to Roosegaarde, whose design firm Studio Roosegaarde has offices in both Rotterdam (Netherlands) and Beijing (China), the idea for his Smog Free Project came just over three years ago, as he gazed out of his Beijing apartment’s window. On a Saturday, the city skyline is visible; on weekdays, it’s shrouded in smog.
Airpocalypse now … Daan Roosegaarde’s anti-smog bicycles.
Roosegaarde first proposed a “smog vacuum cleaner” to remove pollutants from the skies. This evolved into an air-purifying tower, which has just been unveiled in a public park in Tianjin following a successful Kickstarter campaign. The Smog Free Tower uses positive ionization to remove particulate matter from the surrounding air, expelling purified air through vents in the side. The same technology is now being applied – in theory, anyway – to bicycles.
Anti-smog bikes
"Bikes have always been a symbol of energy-friendly and congestion-reducing living, but this bike serves a double function by cleaning the air as you cycle,” says Roosegaarde. “For me, the design has never been about creating yet another chair or another table. We should use creativity to improve the way we live.”
According to Greenpeace, Beijing and Tianjin are just two of 300 cities in China that badly failed air-quality tests in 2015. More than 1.6 million people die every year in China from breathing toxic. Ind in Dece, member a much-publicized “airpocalypse” hit 460 million people, who were exposed to smog levels six times higher than the WHO’s daily guidelines. Flights were grounded, and schools closed, as 24 cities across China were put on “red alert” for extreme smog.
Could Pedal Power Clean China's Polluted Air?
“Healthier cities and urban innovation will always be connected with large-scale governmental investment,” says Roosegaarde. “But I’m too impatient to wait for change to trickle down. The government does top-down, and designers, universities, and NGOs do bottom-up, and hopefully, we meet in the middle.” Roosegaarde hopes that China’s increasingly popular bike-sharing programs will adopt smog-free bikes – there are 29 in total across the country – such as Mobike, Bluegogo, and Ofo.
“Of course, one tower and a few bikes won’t solve China’s air pollution problem, but smog-free bikes are an exciting idea that will hopefully activate communities towards creating greener cities,” says Roosegaarde. “Our aspirations are being redefined; in the future, the biggest luxury won’t be a Louis Vuitton bag. It will be clean air.”
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