The LO2P recycling center concept manages to recycle old cars and trash while growing crops, producing biofuel, filtering the air, and generating electricity — all at the same time. It's too bad you can't ride it.

The LO2P is intended for New Delhi, where an estimated thousand new cars per day contributes to a crazy amount of air pollution, the fourth worst in the world. The structure itself would be built entirely of recycled car bodies, and its primary function would be as a recycling center. LO2P powers itself using a gigantic wind turbine generator, which also forces air through a huge particle collector to help cut down on smog. Surrounding the turbine around the rim of the wheel is a "green filter" where plants are grown to help scrub CO2 out of the air. The plants can be converted into biofuels, or they can be eaten.

This concept just won the 2011 eVolo Skyscraper competition, which doesn't mean it's ever going to be built, but it does mean that enough people think it's a good enough idea to put it a few steps closer to reality than a lot of the concept structures we see around here.

Then again, maybe it's good that this thing'll probably never happen, largely because while it looks like a huge and awesome Ferris wheel. It isn't one, and you can't take rides on it, and that kind of disappointment is likely to cause riots.

Lots more pics of this wild building in the gallery below.

Evolo, via Inhabitat