These Algae Farms Could Help Clean Up Air Pollution
Algae could save us all. A French and Dutch design firm Cloud Collective has developed a bioreactor that uses tubes of circulating algae to help clean up air pollution using photosynthesis. They suspended the algae farm over a stretch of highway in Geneva, Switzerland to prove that the model could work along highways around the world.
The project was developed as part of a garden festival in the city that focused on “the co-habitation of the urban and the natural within the context of the urban expansion of Geneva.” Knowing that the festival would bring in more traffic, Cloud Collective decided to help curb that impact with this system.
In addition to the air quality improvement, there’s actually a lot more to this contraption than meets the eye. Once the algae has bloomed and matured in the tubes, thanks to plenty of sunlight and carbon dioxide, it can be used to create biodiesel, green electricity, medicine, cosmetics and food.
The hope is that these bioreactor signal more good practices yet to come. Cloud Collection sees this as the start of what could be more urban farming, the conservation of green space and rethinking modern infrastructures, which all sound like hopeful, promising and exciting things for the world.
Would you like to see these along the roads you use daily? Let us know in the comments.
