Those plants in your
office or home are not only decorative but scientists are finding them to be
surprisingly useful in absorbing potentially harmful gases and cleaning the air
inside modern buildings.
Tightly sealed offices
with their beautiful furnishings are proving to be hostile environments.
All sorts of dangers
lurk inside -- formaldehyde and benzene fumes released from building materials.
furniture and carpeting: ozone from copying machines; fumes from cleaning
solvents; radon and secondhand smoke.
NASA Research Focuses
on Living Plants.
We all may be
breathing a lot easier thanks to promising National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) research on a most sophisticated pollution-absorbing
device: the common office and house plant. The Interior Plantscape Division of
the Associated Landscape Contractors of America has joined with NASA in a
two-year program to study the effectiveness of popular plants in cleaning indoor
air. 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.
Dr. Bill Wolverton, a
NASA research scientist believes that NASAs finding about indoor plants have
some down-to-earth applications for cleaning dirty indoor air.
He estimates that 15
to 20 Golden Pothos and Spider Plants can clean and refresh the air in the
average 1,800-square-foot home.
Office Plants For
Better Breathing.
In the initial NASA
studies over a dozen varieties of common interior plants were placed in sealed,
Plexiglas chambers. Formaldehyde, a toxic chemical with the greatest exposure on
humans, was introduced. Within 24 hours, the plants -- Philodendron, Spider
Plant and Golden Pothos -- removed 80% of the formaldehyde molecules from the
chamber.
NASA Research
Identifies The Most Efficient Pollution Fighters.
Recent findings reveal
that flowering plants such as Gerbera Daisy and Chrysanthemum are extremely
potent in purifying interior air. Other good performers are Dracaena massageanea,
Spathiphyllum and Golden Pothos.
Improve the Indoor Environment.
Plants take on many indoor enviromental health problems by reducing levels of carbon dioxide, increasing relative humidity, reducing airborne dust levels and reducing off gassing levels of centain common interior pollutants such as formaldehyde, benzene and nitrogen dioxide. You can use plants in your
office to improve the quality of air to make it a more pleasant place to work
where people feel better, perform better.
Green Plants for Green Buildings
493 S. Highland Avenue
Ukiah, CA 95482