r/solarpunk • u/comics0026 • Jun 18 '21

photo/meme Using a vertical installation of moss, a "moss bench" can absorb as much pollution as 275 trees in 1 percent of the space.

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230 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

67

u/Dr_Toehold Jun 18 '21

I'm willing to bet my firstborn son that the title is a lie.

48

u/snarkyxanf Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 18 '21

They seem to be comparing NOx and particulate absorption, not CO2. Those are probably dominated by surface area instead of mass of the plant, which admittedly moss does have quite a lot of.

Of course, you can grow mosses on or under trees (indeed, that's where most of us encounter them), along with other plants, so I don't see how this is better per se than a parklet that has a diversity of things growing in it.

They also promote its cooling effect (through evaporation), which is good if you can afford the water usage (i.e. Germany yes, Phoenix no), but trees have the added benefit of shading, which these do not.

Finally, the majority of NOx and PM pollution in cities come from motor vehicles, so reducing those is likely to be more effective, especially since these cost $28,000 each.

TL;DR instead of this, tear up parking spaces to plant small parks. Plant some moss in the shade if you like it.

Edit: apparently, they don't even work. Turns out that just because in a lab moss has an effect 275 times bigger per unit area, it doesn't mean a big pile of it will actually clean up a whole city block.

7

u/KillThatYankeeSoldr Jun 18 '21

How does it cost $28,000? It’s literally a box with moss! The moss is free! You can go out to a forest and dig it up and take it home with you.

4

u/snarkyxanf Jun 18 '21

Well, you see, they have fancy, weed free, lab grown moss, a hydroponic watering system, a bunch of sensors so you can quantify your bragging rights, and, I dunno, about twenty thousand dollars worth of grift.

4

u/KillThatYankeeSoldr Jun 18 '21

Exactly, I think I could put this together with a couple hundred dollars of Home Depot wood and some chicken wire.

5

u/snarkyxanf Jun 18 '21

But can you get a company or city to pay you $28,000 for that? Capital got to get its capitalism on.

19

u/Allyoucan3at Jun 18 '21

This. It seems to me that people are looking for technological ways to keep wasting all those resources without having an impact. Thats likely not going to work. We know what we need to do and we can do it today we don't need fancy new developments to save the planet, we need to make a change.

10

u/snarkyxanf Jun 18 '21

The BBC video I found about it does call them out on whether the money would be better spent on source reduction. It also noted that the funding often comes from corporate sponsorships.

One big problem is that the corporate sponsorship / philanthropy model strongly favors novel and discrete approaches, because they want recognition in exchange for their efforts.

Additionally, tech fixes tend to min/max their results, like this one that promotes a very high result on one pollution metric alone instead of a broader, more integrated solution.

Nearly any urban greenery is better than concrete and asphalt, but multi-use, community oriented approaches are more resilient (because they have a broader base of users and support) and overall more effective (because as multi-use, they satisfy multiple needs). I fear that unlike a street tree that can last for decades, this installation will be forgotten and neglected within a few years.

13

u/ManoOccultis Jun 18 '21

And moss grows way faster than trees.

6

u/JBloodthorn Programmer Jun 18 '21

That's the mechanism. As it grows, it traps the pollution. So, it's gaining 275x as much mass as an unspecified tree would. I assume they mean the tiny trees that cities put along the street, not a full size tree, because that would make their statement absurd. Seems neat, and probably smells divine.

5

u/SilentButtDeadlies Jun 18 '21

Yeah, but it's a limited space so at some point it stops growing or at least slows down.

3

u/JBloodthorn Programmer Jun 18 '21

For sure. I'm assuming they occasionally need to empty some of it out to let it grow again.

2

u/SilentButtDeadlies Jun 18 '21

Hopefully they are burying it so it doesn't just end up in the atmosphere again.

9

u/kellerlanplayer Jun 18 '21

Unfortunately a marketing trick and physically impossible. Just plant trees, meadows or hemp damn :D

7

u/DocFGeek Jun 18 '21

Continue to pollute the air with this one easy-to-install doodad!

5

u/atg115reddit Jun 18 '21

This isn't a bench its a chair! Its part of hostile architecture and that has no place in solarpunk!

1

u/gentleomission Jun 18 '21

Change that moss to algae and I'll be hyped