Paris' next solution for reducing air pollution?

Stickers

by: Andrew Krok

January 24, 2017 8:42 AM PST

Paris has restricted car use in its city limits in the past, in the hopes of curbing its air pollution problem.
Now, it's trying a new approach: stickers.

Cars will be given stickers of various colors, based on a vehicle's age. The "Crit'Air" system will start by
banning diesel vehicles registered between January 1997 and December 2000, Reuters reports.
Approximately 6 percent of the country's 32 million vehicles fall into this category. The sticker color in
question is, appropriately, gray -- cars wearing it will be stopped from driving in the French capital.

Paris sans Voitures

Enlarge Image

Pedestrians stroll along Paris' famous Champs-Elysees on a Sunday in September 2015 when the city
experimented with a partial ban on car traffic.

Stephen Shankland/CNET

The hope is that stickers will make it easier for police to figure out quickly whether or not a vehicle is
allowed to be driving through Paris. The city has flirted with bans in the past based on license plate
numbers.

If Anne Hidalgo, the city's mayor, has her way, it won't stop there. She wants to extend the ban to
vehicles registered between 2001 and 2005, which covers another 14 percent of those 32 million
vehicles. These vehicles will all sport a brown sticker, which is, again, somewhat apt.

Hidalgo took additional measures to limit city traffic, as well. She's banned free parking on Saturdays and
over the August holiday season, and raised fees at other times. Reuters reports that a highway that
straddles the Seine River will be converted into a park, too.
Pollution continues to be a big problem in the City of Light. It's nowhere near as bad as China's well
publicized smog, but Parisians are starting to blame various ills on the air quality, including coughing fits
and eye irritation, two problems air pollution can easily exacerbate.

Last year, Paris attempted to curb pollution by offering free public transportation throughout the city,
but it apparently wasn't very successful.

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https://www.cnet.com/news/pollution-fighting-vertical-forest-coming-to-china/

Pollution-fighting Vertical Forest buildings coming to China

Two living, breathing buildings will be able to produce around 130 pounds of clean oxygen a day.

BY 

 DANIEL VAN BOOM

FEBRUARY 5, 2017 9:17 PM PST

China has pollution problems, and one Italian architect could have some answers.

The Chinese city of Nanjing is getting a Vertical Forest, a set of two buildings stylised with around 1,100
trees and a combination of over 2,500 shrubs and plants.

But it's not all about how it looks: The Nanjing Towers will absorb enough carbon dioxide to make
around 132 pounds (60 kilograms) of oxygen every day, an official press release claimed. China's Vertical
Forest is scheduled to be completed sometime next year.

At the time of writing, Nanjing has an air-quality index of 167, which categorises it as "unhealthy." For
reference, Sydney and New York both have "moderate" indexes of around 60, while London sits at about
100, teetering between "moderate" and "unhealthy."

It'll be the third city to get a Vertical Forest, following ones built in Milan, Italy and Lausanne,
Switzerland.

The towers will stand at 354 and 656 feet tall, respectively (that's 107 and 199 metres), reports Italian
publication Living. The shorter tower will house a Hyatt hotel, while the taller one will be home to a
museum, offices and an architecture school.

It won't stop here though, as Boeri has plans to build similar structures in Chongqing, Shijiazhuang,
Liuzhou, Guizhou and Shanghai, according to Living.
MIT 'spinoff' researchers turn car pollution into art supplies

Turning noxious particulates into safe ink looks like a beautiful solution.

The auto industry has worked for decades to strip particulates from automobile emissions, and today's
new cars and trucks are actually incredibly clean. But even modern gas- and diesel-powered vehicles still
emit carbon soot -- as do ships, factories and generators.

But what if those noxious particulates weren't just an undesirable and dangerous byproduct? What if
they could be turned into a valuable material? After toiling away in MIT's Media Lab, the scientists at the
"spinoff" Graviky Labs have created a way to do just that. Instead of letting black soot stain our clothes,
buildings, landscapes and lungs, they've figured out how to capture it and turn it into art supplies.

Using their proprietary Kaalink devices, which fit onto automobile exhaust pipes and other soot
generators, researchers collect particulate emissions and then use proprietary processes to purify them
by stripping out carcinogens and heavy metals. They then mix the resultant black pigment with
vegetable oil to create ink for markers and screen printing. The company says its Kaalink units have
"cleaned" about 1.6 trillion liters of air so far.

Graviky Labs sells the finished art supplies under its Air-Ink brand on Kickstarter. It claims that every 30-
milliliter pen is made from about 45 minutes' worth of polluting emissions. The company plans to use
the revenue to scale its collection operation and expand the product range to different types of paints.

Stripping pollutants out of the air while creating tools for artists? That's beautifying the world in two
ways.

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/mit-kickstarter-company-turns-car-pollution-into-ink-art-
supplies/