Beijing Artist Nut Brother Uses A Vacuum Cleaner To Create ‘Smog Bricks’ Out Of China’s Polluted Air
Wang Renzheng, a Chinese activist-artist from Shenzhen who goes by the alias "Nut Brother," is doing his part in fighting the hazardous air pollution in Beijing by sucking up the pollutants from the air with a vacuum cleaner and turning them into "smog bricks," reported The Guardian on Tuesday.
Nut Brother reportedly cranked up his vacuum cleaner as he walked around the streets of Beijing in efforts to clean the air out of dust and other poisonous particles, while hoping to raise awareness of the country's deadly ordeal among fellow citizens.
The activist-artist has been doing the heroic deed of extracting dust and turning them into dark brown "smog bricks" for the last 100 days.
"I want to show this absurdity to more people," said Wang. "I want people to see that we cannot avoid or ignore this problem [and] that we must take real action."
Despite the government's alleged "effective measures" to combat the alarming level of air pollution in the country, Beijing residents still observe nicotine-colored haze engulfing the city.
"The shocking levels of air pollution we have seen in the last few days are a serious danger to the health of hundreds of millions of citizens," said Greenpeace's climate campaigner in China Dong Liansai. "Moreover, the Beijing city government's insufficient alerting system has compounded the problem."
According to DNA India on Tuesday, Nut Brother took out the 100-gram dust particles he gathered from Beijing's air, mixed it with clay and brought it to a brick factory to produce bricks, which are expected to finish in the coming days.
The idea reportedly came to him two years ago having lived in the air-polluted city of Beijing for many years. His aim was to make people aware of the environmental issue and health hazards that they are facing and to increase their understanding of the "relationship between human and nature."
Nut Brother plans to donate the "smog bricks" to a construction site, returning the particles to the concrete jungle of China, just like "putting a drop of water in the ocean."
