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CNN's 'Tech for Good' meets the innovators tackling invisible pollution

July 27, 2022 - 12:10 By

HONG KONG, July 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In the season three premiere of 'Tech for Good', CNN anchor and correspondent Kristie Lu Stout learns more about the unseen sources of pollution in our world, such as space junk, tire particles, greenhouse gas emissions and noise, and meets the innovators who are working to stem the tide of pollution to ensure a cleaner future – not just here on Earth, but beyond.

CNN’s ‘Tech for Good’ meets the innovators tackling invisible pollution
CNN’s ‘Tech for Good’ meets the innovators tackling invisible pollution

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, long-term exposure to noise pollution can adversely affect human health. With our cities getting louder, it's more important than ever to muffle this unseen hazard. In Singapore, Gan Woon-Seng, Professor of Audio Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, is focused on developing technology that can mitigate urban noise. Gan has developed a device that can be mounted on windows and emit soundwaves to cancel out offending noise from outside. He and his team are also working on another noise-reduction technology using a technique called 'intentional masking', where a positive natural sound is played to divert attention away from negative noise.

CNN also hears from Moriba Jah, an Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin, who is on a mission to clean up space debris left from inactive satellites. With nowhere to go, this space junk continues whipping around our planet at great speeds – creating a potentially dangerous situation as a growing number of new satellites continue to be launched. To address this space congestion, Jah built ASTRIAGraph, a program that tracks human-made objects in earth's orbit and feeds their locations into a database, allowing users to see what the current traffic patterns are.

Lu Stout then meets Gavin McCormick, an environmental activist and entrepreneur who is turning to technology to get a clearer picture of pollution levels on Earth. McCormick co-founded the global Climate TRACE coalition, which uses artificial intelligence and satellite imagery to track carbon pollution in real time. McCormick calls the Climate TRACE inventory a kind of Wikipedia for pollution data, which can be used and accessed by policymakers, regulators and the general public in order to provide real-time transparency on emissions data.

Finally, tire dust – made up of fragments released by vehicles as they move – is the second largest microplastic pollutant in our oceans besides single-use plastics. The Tyre Collective is a British start-up with a mission to clean up this invisible pollutant. The collective has developed an award-winning car-mounted device, which is suspended from each wheel's steering knuckle, where electrostatically-charged copper plates gather the tire dust. According to the company, the dust itself accounts for more than half of all particle emissions created by vehicles on the road, which are then released into the air and waterways. Electric vehicles, heavier than gas-powered cars due to their batteries, make this an even more pressing issue. 

Tech for Good trailer: https://bit.ly/3BgyLKS 

Tech for Good images: https://bit.ly/3OthnFD 

Tech for Good microsite: https://cnn.it/3PB5DSq 

Airtimes for 30-minute special:

Saturday, 30th July at 12:30pm HKT
Sunday, 31st July at 12:30am, 11:00am and 6:00pm HKT
Monday, 1st August at 10:30am HKT 

About CNN International 

CNN's portfolio of news and information services is available in seven different languages across all major TV, digital and mobile platforms, reaching more than 475 million households around the globe. CNN International is the number one international TV news channel according to all major media surveys across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the Asia Pacific region, and Latin America and has a US presence that includes CNNgo. CNN Digital is a leading network for online news, mobile news and social media. CNN is at the forefront of digital innovation and continues to invest heavily in expanding its digital global footprint, with a suite of award-winning digital properties and a range of strategic content partnerships, commercialised through a strong data-driven understanding of audience behaviours. CNN has won multiple prestigious awards around the world for its journalism. Around 1,000 hours of long-form series, documentaries and specials are produced every year by CNNI's non-news programming division. CNN has 36 editorial offices and more than 1,100 affiliates worldwide through CNN Newsource. CNN International is a Warner Bros. Discovery company.