"Human refrigerator" provides escape from deadly heatwaves
Japanese vending machine manufacturer SDRS has developed a human-sized, stainless-steel fridge to stave off heatstroke amid the increasingly sweltering summers brought on by climate change.
The Do Hiemon Box serves as a one-person cooling booth, with vents that blow out cool air at temperatures as low as five degrees Celsius – about the same temperature as the chiller compartment of a refrigerator.
Industrial equipment supplier Trusco Nakayama, which is selling the product, says it can help to stave off heat stroke in just 20 minutes while using half as much energy as an average portable air conditioner.
The company compares the insulated stainless steel box to a "human refrigerator", with an interior height of 1.75 metres (5.7 feet) and a narrow seat designed to fit a single person.
The cool air is expelled from vents at the top and back, with three different levels allowing users to adjust the temperature and airflow.
Set on casters and powered using a regular plug, the booth can be easily moved around to offer construction and factory workers, and people attending outdoor events, a moment of respite from the heat.
Trusco Nakayama said the product was designed to provide "full body cooling", unlike the fan jackets or "fan-jakketos" commonly used by outdoor labourers in Japan, as well as by staff of the NTT Pavilion at last year's Osaka Expo.
The news comes after a record number of people in Japan suffered from heat stroke last year, leading meteorologists in the country to invent a new term: kokushobi.
The word, meaning "cruel heat day", is used when temperatures reach 40 degrees Celsius or above.
Last week, Japan experienced an unprecedented five-day streak of kokushobis, leading to 453 people being hospitalised in Tokyo in a single day – the highest number since records began more than a decade ago. The heatwave has killed at least 14 people across the country.
Air conditioning is a controversial method for coping with the increasingly scorching temperatures brought on by climate change because it contributes to the very heat it hopes to alleviate – both immediately by venting waste heat, and in the long term by leaking heat-trapping refrigerant gases and contributing three per cent of all global greenhouse gas emissions.
All of the imagery is courtesy of Trusco Nakayama.
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