Signal 1: Cutting air pollution and making cities breathe with ease again

Link: https://greencitysolutions.de/en/solutions/#section2

With green spaces being crowded out of most cities, improving air quality is proving to be a tall order. Add to that the staggering amount of human and economic loss associated with pollution and you would find yourself hard pressed to do something, anything, that could bring this worrying trend to a halt. But, how do we improve air quality while still keeping the pace of relentless housing and property development high ? Bio-tech filters proposed by a German company have been engineered to cut air pollution by up to 30 percent using a piece of urban furniture that combines the power of biology and IoT technology.

Such a solution, however, raises interesting questions. The first is affordability question. At 25,000 dollars a unit, would cities be sufficiently convinced to fork out such huge amounts of money for acquiring several such units ? Secondly, for how long do moss cultures absorb and retain pollutants before they become very gigantic and unresponsive ? In theory CO2 conversion results in tons of bio-mass production. Finally once such bio-filters become very popular what could be the fate of actual trees ? Such solutions could alter tree planting consistencies and patterns in our cities.