US designs 'pollution-absorbing skyscraper'

Engineers in the US have designed a skyscraper that absorbs pollutants from the atmosphere it has emerged.

Nectar, a firm based in South California, has developed a blueprint for a structure that emulated the actions of between two and four hundred trees by absorbing carbon-polluted air and releasing it as healthy oxygen.

Other advantages to the structure, entitled the CO2 Scraper, are its simple design and its ability to provide shade and cool the air during the hot summer months, reported Advantage Business Media.

Yutaka Kazamaki, a senior designer for Nectar, explained: "With concerns about global warming, environmental pollution, public health and, of course, the economy, […] the need for imaginative, off-the-grid solutions to these very complicated problems is clear."

He added that though the designs are in the "early stages", the firm has "every reason to be optimistic" that the CO2 Scraper will be produced in the future.

Meanwhile, last week, the Environmental Protection Agency began a review of a decision made under the Bush administration to ban California from establishing its own pollution regulations.