Highlights
• Cow burps emit a lot of methane, which hastens climate change.
• A new cattle face mask captures burps
• It converts methane into carbon dioxide and water vapour.
An innovative face mask for cows, designed to reduce methane emissions and slow down climate change, has won a prestigious design award. The wearable device for cattle, created by UK-based design group Zelp, was one of the four winners of the inaugural Terra Cart Design Lab competition. Prince Charles, who launched the competition as part of his Sustainable Markets Initiative, hailed the ground-breaking design as “fascinating” at an awards ceremony in London on 27th April.
Cow mask designed to reduce methane and slow climate change
,A prestigious design award has been bestowed upon an innovative cow face mask designed to reduce methane emissions and slow climate change.
Zelp, a UK-based design firm, created the cattle wearable device, which was one of four winners in the inaugural Terra Cart Design Lab competition. At an awards ceremony in London on 27th april Prince Charles, who launched the competition as part of his Sustainable Markets Initiative, praised the groundbreaking design as “fascinating.
How does it work?
The invention, a smart cow harness, converts methane into carbon dioxide and water vapour. Cows emit large amounts of methane, an odorless greenhouse gas that is more than 25 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, significant reductions in methane emissions would have a rapid effect on slowing climate change.
A dairy cow can emit up to 130 gallons of methane per day. Their burps contribute 95 percent of a cow’s methane emissions. There are approximately one billion cattle on the planet.Cows and other farm animals account for approximately 14% of all human-caused climate emissions.
Changing cow diets has been used in the past to solve the cattle industry’s methane problem. Insider reported in 2019 that scientists proposed mass production of a puffy, pink seaweed to combat climate change. However, Zelp’s solution allows cows to digest normal food while the mask detects, captures, and oxidises methane in the cow’s burps.
