The CityTree Performance Update
With its modern looks and comfortable seating, you’d be forgiven for thinking the CityTree is a good-looking piece of urban furniture. However, it’s much more than that.
Designed by the German techs at Green City Solutions, the CityTree is capable of producing the same amount of fresh air as 275 trees. It also takes up 1% of the space that would be needed by hundreds of trees in an urban park.
How does the CityTree work?
The CityTree uses 1,682 pots of specially selected mosses that are particularly well suited to removing pollutants and particulate matter (PM) from the urban air. Bacteria on the mosses digests PM from 1-10 microns in diameter and the mosses then digest the bacteria.
That’s great news for inner-city areas, as it’s smaller PM that is most deadly to humans, penetrating deep into the lungs and eventually the bloodstream.
From the outside, the CityTree is part hedge, part bench but thanks to solar technology, interconnectivity and an onboard irrigation system that collects and redistributes rainwater, it has the potential to solve air quality crises that affect every major city in the world.
The financial and fatal cost
So far, Dresden-based Green City Solutions premiered the 4 metre high vertical garden in Berlin, Paris, Oslo, Amsterdam and Piccadilly Circus, London.
So, is it worth it?
Here’s the facts. One CityTree costs approximately $25,000 and for context, in 2017, 9,000 Londoners are predicted to have died prematurely thanks to conditions and diseases that were antagonised by poor air quality.
Worldwide, that number telescopes out to be one in seven deaths caused by pollution alone. Look to manufacturing economies like China and India and you’ll see black clouds of particulate matter descending over cities like New Delhi and Beijing, even in 2018.
Of course, there’s also the monetisation potential for advertising using the CityTree, which pales in comparison to the above problems, solutions and opportunities.
The real question is, can we afford to ignore new technologies like the CityTree?
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