Indoor plants are a great way to add a touch of nature in your home. Besides providing an uplifting aesthetic appeal, indoor plants can play a very important role in improving the indoor air quality in your home and office.
Dr Bill Wolverton, an environmental scientist who worked with NASA in the 1960’s and 70’s, was among the first to recommend the use of indoor plants for purifying the air. He discovered that houseplants absorbed indoor chemical pollutants, such as ammonia, formaldehyde, and benzene, found in common household products. He also wrote the book ‘How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 Houseplants That Purify Your Home or Office’, which has since been translated into several languages.
Even if you use environmentally friendly products and have an air purifier to filter the dust particles, the air inside your home and office may be more polluted than the air outside. Indoor plants can help your home and office become healthier spaces by purifying the air of pollutants and allergens.
My favourite is the Spathiphyllum or commonly known as the Peace Lily. Here is one of our plants here in the office of yours truly.
Place a handful of these household plants, group of 10 to 15 plants is more effective than 1 or 2. Widely recognised for their indoor air-cleaning benefits, provides quality indoor air in your home and office –
1. Aloe Vera: You may have dubbed aloe vera for healing sunburns, but did you know that this easy-to-grow plant is effective at absorbing pollutants (formaldehyde and benzene) found in household cleaning products, paints, inks, plastics, glue, as well as personal products (toilet paper, tissues).
2. Spider plant: Even if you suffer from arachnophobia (fear of spiders), keep a spider plant at home. This resilient plant can cleanse the air of harmful chemicals such as benzene, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and xylene, used in the making of leather and rubber products as well as in the printing industry.
3. Gerber daisy: Love getting your clothes dry-cleaned? Then do keep this cheerful flowering plant to rid the air of trichloroethylene that comes back with your dry-cleaned clothes. This flowering plant is also good at filtering benzene.
4. Mother-in-law’s tongue (or the snake plant): This cheekily named indoor plant is great for filtering out formaldehyde.
5. Chrysanthemum: Add a dash of colour and fresh air in your office and home with these flowering plants. Use them to filter out benzene. Place them in a spot where there is adequate sunlight.
6. Red-edged dracaena: This indoor plant is very effective at filtering xylene, trichloroethylene and formaldehyde found in lacquers, varnishes and gasoline.
7. English Ivy: This plant reduces airborne faecal-matter particles. It also filters formaldehyde and benzene. Place 2-3 pots of ivy in an area of 10 square meters.
8. Rubber plant: Rubber plants are considered highly auspicious in Feng Shui. But they are also great air purifiers. These are great for absorbing carbon monoxide and reducing dust in your home or office.
9. Golden pothos: Place this plant in your garage to absorb the formaldehyde contained in the exhaust fumes.
10. Warneck dracaena: This striking, but low maintenance indoor plant can be used to combat the pollution arising from varnishes and oil.
So there you have it, our list of 10 indoor plants that can work wonders as nature’s air conditioners in your home and office.
Do you have indoor plants in your home or office? Which plants would you recommend for keeping the indoor air fresh?
Please share your feedback in the comments box below.
Towards healthier living, Carol Parr ♥
Our passion comes from pure necessity that we can all live natural and healthy lives, we can all contribute to human wellbeing and preservation and determine the future health of our children and their environment tomorrow.
As a result of working with us, families thrive, sensitive occupants heal. They’re healthier, they’re alert, they’re happier, more relaxed, more productive, and enjoying life.
Together we bring about healthy indoor environments and create rooms that provide calmness, healthy sleep, relaxation and restored energy for you and your family.
By maintaining indoor spaces to close as possible more natural conditions, occupants are healthy and happy, it’s nice that it sustains our planet’s ecology, you’d agree.
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Indoor plants can prove to be a valuable weapon to fighting the rising levels of indoor pollution. These are best solution to improve air quality of any house. Thanks for sharing this informative post.
You are welcome Diana. for more info about indoor plants and the indoor air contaminants they combat, “How to Grow Fresh Air – 50 Houseplants that Purify Your Home or Office” by Dr B.C. Wolverton