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Top Ten Houseplants for Cleaner Air
Adapted from Your Naturally Healthy Home, by Alan Berman

No listing of the Top Five Cleaners would be complete without mentioning houseplants, our often-overlooked helpers in ridding the air of pollutants and toxins, counteracting outgassing and contributing to balanced internal humidity.

Find out which houseplants are our most effective allies in keeping your household air clean and pure.

It is suggested that one plant should be allowed for approximately 10 square yards of floor space, assuming average ceiling heights of 8 to 9 feet. This means that you need two or three plants to contribute to good air quality in the average domestic living room of about 20 to 25 square yards.

Research has shown that these ten plants are the most effective all-around in counteracting offgassed chemicals and contributing to balanced internal humidity:

Areca palm
Reed palm
Dwarf date palm
Boston fern
Janet Craig dracaena
English ivy
Australian sword fern
Peace Lily
Rubber plant
Weeping fig

Although many plants like light, they do not all have to be placed near windows. Many indoor plants originated in the dense shade of tropical forests and have a high rate of photosynthesis. These are ideal for the home and can be placed in darker corners. When positioning plants, try to strike a balance between light and ventilation because the effect of plants on indoor air pollution appears to be reduced if they are set in a draft.

Source: www.care2.com

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Common indoor plants may provide a valuable weapon in the fight against rising levels of indoor air pollution. Those plants in your office or home are not only decorative, but NASA scientists are finding them to be surprisingly useful in absorbing potentially harmful gases and cleaning the air inside modern buildings.

NASA and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America (ALCA) have announced the findings of a 2-year study that suggest a sophisticated pollution-absorbing device: the common indoor plant may provide a natural way of helping combat "Sick Building Syndrome"

Research into the use of biological processes as a means of solving environmental problems, both on Earth and in space habitats, has been carried out for many years by Dr. Bill Wolverton, formerly a senior research scientist at NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center, Bay St. Louis, Miss.

Based on preliminary evaluations of the use of common indoor plants for indoor air purification and revitalization, ALCA joined NASA to fund a study using about a dozen popular varieties of ornamental plants to determine their effectiveness in removing several key pollutants associated with indoor air pollution. NASA research on indoor plants has found that living plants are so efficient at absorbing contaminants in the air that some will be launched into space as part of the biological life support system aboard future orbiting space stations.

While more research is needed, Wolverton says the study has shown that common indoor landscaping plants can remove certain pollutants from the indoor environment. "We feel that future results will provide an even stronger argument that common indoor landscaping plants can be a very effective part of a system used to provide pollution free homes and work places, " he concludes.

Each plant type was placed in sealed, Plexiglas chambers in which chemicals were injected. Philodendron, spider plant and the golden pothos were labeled the most effective in removing formaldehyde molecules. Flowering plants such as gerbera daisy and chrysanthemums were rated superior in removing benzene from the chamber atmosphere. Other good performers are Dracaena Massangeana, Spathiphyllum, and Golden Pothos. "Plants take substances out of the air through the tiny openings in their leaves," Wolverton said. "But research in our laboratories has determined that plant leaves, roots and soil bacteria are all important in removing trace levels of toxic vapors".

"Combining nature with technology can increase the effectiveness of plants in removing air pollutants," he said. "A living air cleaner is created by combining activated carbon and a fan with a potted plant. The roots of the plant grow right in the carbon and slowly degrade the chemicals absorbed there," Wolverton explains.

NASA research has consistently shown that living, green and flowering plants can remove several toxic chemicals from the air in building interiors. You can use plants in your home or office to improve the quality of the air to make it a more pleasant place to live and work - where people feel better, perform better, any enjoy life more.

TOP 10 plants most effective in removing formaldehyde, benzene, and carbon monoxide from the air:

Bamboo Palm - Chamaedorea Seifritzii

Chinese Evergreen - Aglaonema Modestum

English Ivy - Hedera Helix

Gerbera Daisy - Gerbera Jamesonii

Janet Craig - Dracaena "Janet Craig"

Marginata - Dracaena Marginata

Mass cane/Corn Plant - Dracaena Massangeana

Mother-in-Law's Tongue - Sansevieria Laurentii

Pot Mum - Chrysantheium morifolium

Peace Lily - Spathiphyllum "Mauna Loa"

Warneckii - Dracaena "Warneckii"

Source: www.zone10.com

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Indoor plants taking up volatile organic compounds

Botanically speaking there is no such thing as an "indoor plant". But many plants can be grown indoors, given the right conditions. Indoor plants, which are domesticated or genetically conceived, add a pleasing and healthy look to any room or office and bring physical and psychological benefits by cleaning the air we breathe.

Air pollution in rooms or offices either originates outside the living space, or is released by "things" inside the living space. ‘Things’ like furniture, carpets and curtains, in short, all the things that make the interior of a room functional and comfortable. They are a major source of indoor air pollution and the result is that indoor air is usually several times more polluted than outdoor air.

Recent research on how, and indeed if, indoor plants actually clean our air, was conducted in both, laboratory studies and office studies. The result claims that they really do! Professor Margaret Burchett, from the University of Technology in Sydney, found in her indoor plant research, that even a small amount of indoor plants clean the air inside homes and offices.

60 offices at Sydney’s University of Technology were used for the research, with various numbers and sizes of plants per room. The man who pioneered all this work is Bill Wolverton, who, whilst working with the NASA, looked at how plants could help space travellers. He discovered that plants have this capacity to take up volatile organics and he suggests one plant per standard sized room.

Professor Burchett’s research also showed that indoor plants are very good at taking up volatile organic compounds such as furniture glues and carpet glues, furniture coverings and even cosmetics. They are a major source of indoor air pollution. Indoor air is usually several times more polluted that outdoor air.

"It is important to know that indoor plants can reduce the number of contaminants by up to 75% down to completely negligible levels," she said on 774 ABC Melbourne’s Saturday Morning Gardening segment. "As far as we know, any standard indoor plant will do it, because it’s mainly the micro organisms of the potting mix which actually do the sucking up and degrading them harmless carbon dioxide. The plant does play a direct role, but its main task is feeding and supporting the micro organisms, and so you have a little microcosm there, a symbiotic relationship with the plants and microbes cooperating."

Overseas studies support Professor Burchett’s research, also finding that volatile organics in the indoor atmosphere are a major contributor to what’s called ‘Sick Building Syndrome’ (SBS), which has headaches, sore eyes and nose, and loss of concentration as symptoms. "Indoor plants can reduce that to below a hundred parts per billion, which is like a half of aspirin in an Olympic pool", she said.

And are there significant benefits from the oxygen release from plants into the atmosphere? "Of course, yes under well lighted conditions. Under adequately lighted conditions for the particular species concerned it will be taking up carbon dioxide, and dispelling oxygen into the air, which refreshes the air. If at home you’ve got them along your kitchen or bathroom window, they are getting quite a deal of light. So far as the numbers that you need, we have shown that six little table sized specimens of the sorts that you put on your kitchen window sill, is more that enough, to clear a room, an office."

Some of the plants mentioned in the gardening segment were:

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Indoor plants taking up volatile organic compounds