It ’s no secret that London ’s air isgrimy as hell . Within just one calendar month , “ the Big Smoke ” reachedits breeze pollution limitset by the EU for the whole of 2018 . But a new piece of urban furniture hopes to serve as a footsoldier in the capital ’s big struggle to " go green " .

Germany - based tech inauguration Green City Solutions has of late “ planted ” aCityTreeoutside the pubs and organic supermarket of Glasshouse Street in London , a short walking from the notoriously fussy Piccadilly Circus . It ’s a kind of crossbreed between a city workbench , a pollution - suck in filter , and an environment - tracking chic gimmick .

It works usinga combination of plant life and mosses that naturally get rid of junk , nitrogen dioxide , and ozone gases from the surrounding melody . It ’s also hook up to the “ Internet of things ” ,   furnish data on pollution levels , grunge humidity , breeze temperature , and water quality . On top of all this , it ’s been design to be resistant to vandalism and features solar panel that fill all of its electricity need .

Although only small , this machine claims to have the same benefit of up to 275 material tree by filtering the air of up to 240   tonnes ( 265 tons ) of carbon dioxide per year , plus all the other nasty fine - matter particulates and N dioxide found in inner - city pollution .

While this bench alone is not going to address all of London ’s wheezing woe , it dish out as a great object lesson of how intent and technology are taking up the challenge of work our major planet ’s environmental problem .

“ There is no simple solvent , so alongside our oeuvre to reduce carbon paper emissions from our buildings and reduce the number of fomite on our route , we want to test and learn from newfangled engineering , ” James Cooksey , Director of Central London at The Crown Estate , said in astatement .

London is just the previous urban center to have its own CityTree . So far   the inauguration has install over 20 CityTrees in urban areas , include Berlin , Oslo , Paris , Drammen in Norway , Amsterdam , Brussels , and Hong Kong , as well as Newcastle in the Second Earl of Guilford of the UK .

“ Our ultimate finish is to contain applied science from the CityTree into existing buildings , " Zhengliang Wu , co - beginner of Green City Solutions , toldCNNlast year .

" We dream of create a clime substructure so we can regularize what kind of air and also what sort of temperature we have in a city . "