Remscheid -- An Industrial De-Pollution Capital?

This project details the futures of more than 100 cities and towns across the globe as they fight to overcome all the grave socio-environmental challenges of the 21st century. As part of this process, we highlight the future of the German town of Remscheid.

If you visit Remscheid in 2121AD, you will find myriad varieties of mobile machines, dubbed 'Remscheid Robots', vigorously sucking in all manner of anthropogenic pollutants from the atmosphere (including carbon dioxide) then recycling these pollutants into benign chemicals, and transforming them into raw materials for various new products.

GALLERY: "The Remscheid Robots" (by the Ecotopia 2121 team)

Some say these remarkable recycling machines will push Germany -- and the world -- into a "Great Green Future". However, it might just make engineers feel that because they are confidently and successfully sucking in so many pollutants, it is okay for various other industries to keep spewing out even more pollutants -- both old kinds and novel kinds -- since they can probably be managed by new technological methods.

So, with new industrial pollution still spewing into the atmosphere, maybe nothing will really change.