Pumping carbon dioxide waste to rooftop gardens boosts crop yields

Rooftop gardens are a great way to make urban communities more sustainable, economical, and enjoyable for residents. That said, there’s a reason they aren’t as ubiquitous as many would expect—because of issues such as increased solar radiation and higher wind speeds, the conditions generally aren’t as favorable for plants as they are at ground level. Thanks to recent breakthrough developments, however, rooftop yields could dramatically increase thanks to some ingenious rerouting of buildings’ typical carbon dioxide emissions.

According to a paper published last week in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, researchers constructed a new ventilation system reliant on a Boston University building’s normal carbon exhaust system to act as fertilizer for both spinach and corn crops. Meanwhile, control plants grown nearby employed their own fan system to ensure airflow sans building emissions. The resulting yields were noticeable, to say the least.