Two coal miners in southern Poland are fighting air pollution with specially designed benches which detect and purify dirty air.
Michał Kaczorek and Michał Szyszkowski designed and constructed the benches in their workshop, set up in a backyard garage.
The benches are equipped with a sensor to measure particles in the air and light up red, yellow or green, depending on the amount of matter - red signifies a high amount, green for a low amount.
Kaczorek explained that after reacting physically to poor quality air, the miners decided to create a product that would make the measure of air quality visible at a glance.
The benches include a purifying system which can clean 860 cubic metres of air per hour - equivalent to the amount of air in a room which is 80 square metres in size (861 square foot).
A bench has already been installed in the city hall of the hometown of the miners, Jastrzębie-Zdrój, who have hopes of installing more across Poland including in airports, offices, hospitals and schools.
A 2016 World Health Organization (WHO) report found that 33 of the 50 most-polluted places in the European Union (EU) were in Poland, mostly in the country's south.
Currently, around 80 percent of Poland's power production is provided by coal-fired plant generation. It aims to cut that to half by 2040, with renewable energy and nuclear providing much of the rest and gas-fired generation providing back-up.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Reuters