Pollution-battling backpack wins design competition

Eleanor Woods said she was inspired by her mum, who has asthma, to design a bag that helped tackle pollution

A schoolgirl who designed a backpack to help tackle pollution said she was inspired by her asthmatic mum.

Eleanor Woods, from Highburton, near Huddersfield, created a bag with a built-in solar-powered fan and filter to clean polluted air.

She has won a national engineering competition with her design.

The 12-year-old said she hopes the backpack will help improve people's health and said it "could be really good for the planet".

"My generation is really aware of pollution and we have lessons on it at school along with diseases spreading, and this is another reason I designed this, because it is getting much worse," she said.

"I walk to school, next to the road, and can taste the petrol when buses come through."

She said Greta Thunberg was a "really big role model".

Eleanor Woods with her winning backpack design

Eleanor entered the Backpack To The Future competition after her mother, who suffers from asthma, put the application form in her room.

"I have an air filter at home because my mum has mild asthma," she said.

"We have just had a pandemic and this backpack could help prevent another one from happening with the air filters."

In the future, Eleanor said she hopes to enter the world of creative design and is also eager to get into teaching.

She was presented with her winning design at a ceremony in London at the weekend.

Her mum, Annabel Hobbs, 58, said: "I can't believe she drew something and now we actually get to see it."