Could 'green lamp posts' be the solution to our air pollution problem?
Clean air in the capital has been making headlines left, right and centre over the last couple of months; and for good reason. Public Health England has data showing that seven of every 100 deaths in central London can be attributed to pollution levels and, last year for brief periods, pollution levels were worse than Beijing.
We’ve created low-emission zones and we’ve introduced hybrid buses, but could another solution be right under our noses – or rather, above our heads?
The Smart Pillar, an invention from the Scotscape Group and Greenwich University, is the world’s first ‘green lamp post’, which will today be launching with lamp posts around Belgravia to coincide with London Climate Week.
The invention consists of a green column that can be fitted around existing lamp posts, which will then be filled with a variety of plants to help remove particulate matter from the air, reduce noise pollution and even promote biodiversity, all depending on the planting mix going into the containers.
“Creating new green space in intensely used urban areas requires imagination and determination,” says Andrew Maskell, landscape manager of property firm Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, who are piloting the scheme. This invention is just one of 250 biodiversity features that the company has invested in, including green roofs, beehives, parklets, bat and bird boxes and habitat hotels.
The concept of ‘vertical greening’ and living walls is by no means new; French designer/botanist Patrick Blanc has been growing plants on walls since the mid-80s, and such is their popularity (they’re the go-to for those with small gardens and large aspirations), that Waitrose sells its own vertical garden starter kits.
But recently the vertical garden has been given an enviro-makeover. Ocado last month invested £17m in ‘vertical farm’ company Jones Food in Scunthorpe – an innovative idea that promises to revolutionise urban farming. Vertical planting has also been given the cool-factor by recent collaboration between Tom Dixon and IKEA at the Chelsea Flower Show, where their ‘Gardening Will Save the World’ installation featured everything from futuristic hydroponics to a botanical canopy filled with plants chosen for their medicinal, environmental and wellbeing benefits.
The pillars will come in three different varieties; the ‘biodiversity’ blend offers a year-round food source for insects and birds, the ‘pollution relief blend’ uses a combination of purifying plants such as lamb’s ear, box and ivy, and the ‘flower tower’ blend aims to add an explosion of colour to the streets and promote mental wellbeing.
According to Scotscape, the pillars can be easily installed and require minimal maintenance as they recirculate water and use a solar-powered irrigation system embedded at the top of the column. It almost sounds too good to be true - can the solution to our pollution problem really lie within a cluster of glorified lamp posts?
Well, considering there are 14,000 lamp posts in Westminster alone (a quick Google tells me that, annoyingly, no one knows the exact figure of lamp posts in the UK – apparently it frequently comes up on lists of the hardest interview questions ever), it would be awfully defeatist to dismiss the invention for its simplicity. As Cllr Tim Mitchell of Westminster City Council says: “There are no silver bullets in the fight against pollution – it’s going to take a range of measures to improve the air we breathe.”
And it’s worth remembering - a Smart Pillar won’t cost you in excess of £10 whenever you venture into the congestion zones, and it won’t tax you heavily for owning a car slightly past its prime. Too often it seems the government’s strategy for tackling air pollution takes the form of taxation, so it’s refreshing to hear of an initiative that uses nature as its ally in the fight for cleaner air.
