Plants Improve Indoor Air Quality

Primary school science lessons taught us the basics of photosynthesis and how plants breathe in the exact opposite way to ourselves – converting carbon dioxide in the air into fresh oxygen. This mechanism acts as the perfect ying to our yang balancing the levels of carbon dioxide and oxygen in our homes and offices. However, a process not many of us were taught in school is phytoremediation where living plants are used to clean soil, air and water contaminated with hazardous substances. It has been proposed as a cost-effective solution to improve environments, both indoor and out, due to plants ability to bioacculumate chemcials. Since the 1960’s, researchers have been investigating the effects that living in confined spaces can have on our physical health. Anything from furniture paint to cleaning detergents in your home can give off harmful toxins called Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s) that can have damaging effects on the air quality in your house. This in turn may impact your breathing, sleep quality and induce other allergy-related symptoms, also known as “Sick Building Syndrome” (SBS). It had long been heralded that houseplants were an effective way to eliminate VOC’s. More recent scientific findings have concluded that plants on their own would not be enough to eliminate these harmful pollutants. However, the combination of both air purifiers and indoor plants have been shown to be effective methods to clean indoor air, add oxygen back into the air and balance humidity levels (something air purifiers cannot do alone).