Nature is an amazing thing, and according to some University of Georgia research appearing in a recent issue of HortScience, there are some plants that can actually remove dangerous airborne contaminants that might be found in anyone’s home – even yours.
Things like harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene, toluene, octane, alpha-pinene and trichloroethylene (TCF).
Adding a few living green plants to your home or office may do more than just add some warmth and bring the outdoors in, it might also help to clean the air.
In all, 28 indoor plants were tested by Stanley Kays, Ph.D. of the University of Georgia and his team to see which might remove contaminants (a process known as phytoremediation) from the air.
The plants were put in glass, gas tight containers and then exposed the plants to some organic compounds you’d find indoors. The plants did a good job of removing the contaminants from the air.
In fact, there might be thousands of plants that are able to remove airborne contaminants, but the team found 5 “super ornamentals” with the best rates of contaminant removal. The best included:
- Red ivy (Hemigraphis alternata)
- English ivy (Hedera helix)
- Variegated wax plant (Hoya cornosa)
- Asparagus fern (Asparagus densiflorus)
- Purple heart (Tradescantia pallida)
No one can explain why some plants are able to do this and others show little promise, but science continues to dig for the answers. “We also want to determine the species and number of plants needed in a house or office to neutralize problem contaminants,” Kays explains. “The idea that plants take up volatile compounds isn’t as much of a surprise as the poor air quality we measured inside some of the homes we tested.”
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are likely in the air of any home, given off by your furnishings, carpet, plastics, building materials (drywall, paint, solvents, adhesives), cleaning products and perhaps even your tap water.
Turns out that the air in our homes and offices is a concentrated source of these pollutants – astonishingly some indoor spaces can be up to 100 times more polluted than outdoor air.
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Cure For Unhealthy Air – Houseplants Continued…
Dangerous VOCs have been linked to conditions like asthma, cancer, neurological and reproductive disorders.
They claim about 1.6 million lives a year according to a 2002 World Health Organizations report. Since 1957, experts have identified fifty million organic and inorganic chemicals and registered them in the CAS system.
Not all volatile organic compounds are toxic, and there are plants that emit VOCs too, though most of these don’t appear to be dangerous.
Some plants are better for certain toxins than others. Today there is no test you can do inside your home to check for toxins, but the hope is that in the near future there will be an affordable test to help you identify the contaminants in your home, along with a list of the best plants to clean the air.
“Ideally, we’d have an extension service that would send out a packet that would do the test for you to send back and get recommendations,” Kays concludes. There are scientists in Korea who are well ahead of the U.S. in phytoremediation, and have already looked at 86 species in an effort to identify one that might remove indoor formaldehyde.
In the meantime, you might consider adding a few ornamental plants to your home or office not just to upgrade the look of the space, but to take advantage of the potential air quality benefits they might bring.
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