14 DAY TRIAL // It is no news that, particularly in crowded urban areas, air quality is a pressing issue, seeing how most of the activities carried out here result into harmful chemical compounds being released into the atmosphere.
However, the good news is that, according to a recent study to be published in the Journal Environmental Science and Technology, all it takes to tackle this problem is planting some trees, bushes and other types of vegetation in our beloved concrete jungles.
Business Green informs us that scientists working with the Universities of Birmingham and Lancaster reached the conclusion that so-called green walls can prove to be a highly efficient way of putting a leash on urban air pollution.
More precisely, they believe that local authorities should invest in designing, growing and taking care of walls made of grass, climbing ivy and the like.
Apparently, such environmentally friendly walls are to be preferred to your traditional parks and gardens for two main reasons.
First of all, said green spaces only trap harmful chemical compounds at ground levels, whereas these innovative green walls can also absorb gas emissions that do not usually build up so close to the soil .
As well as this, green walls do not require a lot of space, so urban geographies will not have to be greatly disturbed so as to make room for them.
The same source informs us that professor Rob MacKenzie from the University of Birmingham explained how, “Up until now, every initiative around reducing pollution has taken a top-down approach – scrapping old cars, adding catalytic converters to cars, and bringing in the congestion charge – some of which have not had the desired effect.”
However, as far as he is concerned, these green walls are bound to be much more efficient than the afore-mentioned strategies. According to preliminary reports, they might even reduce air pollution by as much as 30%.
Seeing how 35,000 to 50,000 premature deaths are attributed to air pollution on a yearly basis in the UK alone, it is indeed encouraging that researchers are continuously working towards tackling this problem.