Arab News Japan

DUBAI: Japan’s newest eco-friendly vending machine is the first of its kind to contribute to the realization of a decarbonized society.

Japan is a country known for the high numbers of vending machines scattered all over the country selling everything from water and chocolate to books and toys; it was about time to pave the way for a new era in automatic vending systems.

The new vending machine developed by Asahi, Japanese beverage tycoon headquartered in Tokyo, has the special feature of absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the environment.

The process doesn’t end at just absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere; it is turn used to make industrial material such as fertilizers and concrete, which will then aid in the building of seaweed beds creating a blue carbon system.

The machines are now past the initial development stage and approvals are pending to distribute over the streets of Japan.

Asahi is planning on installing 30 machines in places with high CO2 emissions such as indoor environments and populous outdoors places near Tokyo and Osaka to test the speed and amount of CO2 absorption from the atmosphere.

The precision in this new machine is fascinating; the machines are programmed to ingest the surrounding air to cool or warm the products inside as well as only absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere using special functionalities and materials, essentially imitating the behavior of a tree.

Asahi’s calculations resulted in the expected annual CO2 absorption per unit to be around 20% of the CO2 emissions from the electricity used, which is equivalent to the annual absorption of about 20 Japanese cedar trees aged 56-60 years.

Asahi plans for full scale deployment of the machines starting the year 2024; its aim is to continue developing materials and machines with high CO2 absorbing capacities that are totally carbon neutral ultimately aiding in the rising climate change catastrophe.