Read the full story at Earth911.
While bicycling may be an eco-friendly form of transportation, bike helmets aren’t very sustainable: They need to be thrown out after one accident and can’t be recycled.
But London student Anirudha Rao has designed a new bike helmet that he hopes will not only make helmets more environmentally friendly, but also safer and more affordable.
Typical helmets are made from polystyrene, which Rao says distributes impact over the rider’s head instead of absorbing it. These helmets only protect a cyclist’s head in 16 percent of all crashes, according to Rao.
Rao uses corrugated cardboard to produce his new helmet, called the Kranium. Designed to allow movement and taking advantage of cardboard’s “crumbling nature,” the Kranium absorbed four times as much impact energy in test crashes as a standard helmet, according to Rao’s website.