Billboards are generally used to sell products, but Toyota has set up 37 billboards in San Francisco and Los Angeles designed to clean the air.
The eco-billboard technology has been developed in partnership with Pureti Group to promote Toyota’s hydrogen fuel cell electric car - the Mirai. Mirai is the Japanese word for ‘the future’ and as hydrogen vehicles emit nothing but water vapour into the atmosphere they certainly represent a positive future.
The thirty seven billboards, scattered around the two cities, create 24,960 square feet of pollution-scrubbing surface and reverse the equivalent of 440 vehicles per month worth of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions per month; a key ingredient in acid rain and smog.
The billboards use a titanium dioxide coated vinyl to purify the surrounding air. When oxygen reacts with the energized titanium dioxide catalyst, NO2 is converted to nitrate and removed from the air. The light-activated, smog-reducing billboards continue to purify the air as long as light, humidity, airflow and the titanium dioxide coating are present.
“Toyota consistently searches for new environmental technologies across all operations. When Clear Channel Outdoor Americas brought us the opportunity, we saw it as a perfect match,” said Mark Angelacos, advanced technology General Manager, Toyota Motor North America, Inc.
“This new campaign delivers Toyota Mirai’s ‘vehicle of change’ message on a medium that lives up to that promise.”
Toyota’s Prius is the most successful hybrid vehicle available and has contributed to the normalisation of low-emission vehicles.
Positive Actions
- Reduce indoor air pollution in your home
- Look for ways to reduce vehicle emissions such as walking, cycling or takng public transport and when you trade in your car, switch to a low emission vehicle like a Toyota hybrid or hydrogen vehicle.
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