Wang Zhijun, a young man from Beijing, has used his passion for running to design a mask that protects residents of the city from smog using old pairs of trainers, he explained in an interview on Monday.
Necessity was indeed the mother of invention here, as Wang said that the idea came due to the fact that “the smog in Beijing has been worse recently. I have run since 2010 and I can feel all the smog I have breathed in. I need a mask to protect myself.”
He went on to describe the process of making the masks:
“I measure the size of shoes and make a blueprint of the mask before I started making it. The ancillary for the mask is easy to obtain.”
Wang started making the masks with limited edition trainers in 2012 and now sells them all over the world.
Sina Weibo, Internet screengrabs
