Solutions Journalism: The art of air pollution

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2024

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Air Pollution is responsible for around seven million deaths every year. Governments around the world have been trying to tackle it with a variety of measures. But now, the fight against air pollution is increasingly catching the imagination of artists and designers. In Al Hudayriyat Island in Abu Dhabi, a 7m high installation, Smog Free Tower by Dutch Studio Roosegaarde, bills itself as "the world's first smog vacuum cleaner." It purifies 30,000 cubic metres of air per hour and the dirt filtered from this urban smog is compressed into jewellery - Smog Free Ring - and sold to finance the project. In Delhi and Bangalore, AIR INK is "turning air pollution into ink solution" by capturing the black particles that float in the atmosphere and turning them into ink. Founder Anirudh Sharma and his co-founder Nikhil Kaushik, say taking air pollution and turning it into ink means the more AIR INK on your page, the less pollution in your lungs.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
0:07.0	I'm Harriet Robinson and this is the art of air pollution.
0:11.0	I'm meeting the passionate individuals searching for solutions
0:14.4	that are driving positive change in our world. Every single day around 2,000
0:20.5	children die from air pollution. Only just trailing heart disease, it's the world's second biggest killer, taking more than 8 million victims each year.
0:30.0	It's always and always hot, whether it's the day or it's the night and there's so much of dust around
0:38.0	Now the fight against air pollution is increasingly catching the imagination of artists and designers.
0:44.0	Things that are often very difficult to explain to people
0:48.0	and sometimes things that are not visible to people.
0:50.0	Art makes that visible.
0:52.0	We meet the creative projects literally. people, art makes that visible.
0:53.0	We meet the creative projects literally stripping pollutants from the atmosphere and transforming
0:58.7	them into something rather wonderful, whilst at the same time creating a movement.
1:04.0	We started to produce smog-free rings from this compressed incredibly disgusting
1:09.7	smog particles.
1:11.2	We have now a waiting list of 3,244 people.
1:15.0	Pollution is particularly high in Abu Dhabi,
1:20.0	where of late the air has been considered safe for just one in every 10 days.
1:25.7	One solution being offered to the UAE's capital is a 7 metre high, 4 metre wide, smog-free
1:31.4	tower.
1:32.4	This aluminium structure purifies the air in public spaces.
1:37.1	The Dutch artist behind it is Dan Rosegard who along with his organization
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.