Top 5 Plants For Improving Indoor Air Quality

For more plants that clean your air check out:

"How to Grow Fresh Air : 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office" by BC Wolverton.

While English Ivy is great for cleaning indoor air, be very careful with it! It is a very dangerous invasive plant:

http://www.nps.gov/archive/redw/e-ivy.htm

-Riskable
http://riskable.com
"If you elect leaders that act irresponsibly towards nature, you'll find that irresponsibility is the nature of your leaders."

Hmm... that was a short post. IF you're gonna make a cool headline, follow it up with some action!

No kidding short post. Care to back up the claim? Cite studies like the NASA one? (check ask yahoo) Maybe pictures of the plants, say?

"No studies have been conducted to demonstrate the efficacy of plant use in indoor environments under real-world conditions. Because absorption is passive and contaminant generation is dynamic, the use of plants to control indoor air contaminants effectively is not probable. Nevertheless, it has caught the fancy of many Americans who have attempted to use plants for air cleaning purposes."

Source: 'Indoor Environmental Air Quality' Godish, Thad. Lewish Publishers, 2000

I tend to agree, not sure of the practicality or effectiveness. That said, I think that purely for aesthetic reasons, and that plants are cool

Really? I have to tell my Poulsbo florist then, who helps out in our garden, to plant more bamboo and mums on our backyard.

if you read the link for english ivy.. its only a problem if outdoors, not indoors.

searching the internet regarding the health benefits of plants its safe to say that having a couple in your house has no real negative implications, so why not just in case.. it cant hurt.

what are the 5?

I believe NASA did a study to show that these plants do indeed absorb the air pollutants.

This is an older book, but according to "Eco-Friendly Houseplants: 50 indoor plants that purify the air in homes and offices" by B.C. Wolverton in 1996 (which bases its research on studies that include NASA's research in their "bio-home" project), plants within a personal breathing zone (6-8 cubic feet) can add some extra humidity, remove some bio-effluents and chemical toxins, and suppress some of the airborne microbes that get released with the breaking down of particles in carpets.

So, while the plants will not solve all the problems of loose chemicals floating around in indoor air, they can help to an effect (the more plants, the more they will help is the general idea.)

Please also be aware that some of the plants recommended here are poisonous to pets and/ or children. Peace lily, English Ivy and mums are poisonous (lilies are particularly potent to cats, causing kidney failure!) Safer, non-toxic indoor air cleaning plants include bamboo palm, lady palm (which is one of the more effective plants for removing ammonia and formaldehyde), parlor palm (good at removing ammonia), moth orchids (good at removing a portion of xylene and toluene). While weeping figs and rubber plants have a minor level of toxicity in their sap that is considered a mouth and skin irritant, they are not considered deadly, and are some of the more effective plants at removing formaldehyde and the like, so I think they are a good choice as well (though I recommend keeping the more dangerous ones out of reach.)

Be careful Lilliies are very poisonous for cats,

Thanks so much to the Indiana poster. While I'd love to breathe better indoors, I have a toddler that longs to swim in the compost heap sooo toxic plants are definitely a concern for me.

While this was a good conversation to start up, someone ought to filter out short, confusing, un-backed (is that a word?) articles like this. It's not quite an article and not even art-... more like an ar-.

There is evidence of plants helping to clear the air in homes. As referenced above NASA and ALCA did a joint study with 2 years of data. Follow the link to see the full story.

http://www.zone10.com/tech/NASA/Fyh.htm

Plant sequester carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. As long as a plant is not dormant it is actively sequestering carbon dioxide, while promoting oxygen. Inside, most buildings promote less than 10% fresh air through the HVAC system. By placing plants inside, there is no denying the fact that they will help to promote better air quality. The reality is that certain plants are much better than others at efficiently accomplishing this task.
Bamboo is the fastest growing plant know to man and promotes 35% more oxygen into the atmosphere than any other plant.
Since many people are scared of bamboo, they will write it off as just another invasive species, rather than realizing the benefits it can provide. So for all you bamboo haters, get over yourself and realize that if bamboo were going to take over the world, it would have done so thousands of years ago. PS...bamboo does not spread by seed, so it is literally as invasive as you want it to be.
Unfortunately perception becomes reality, and people are to lazy think outside the box! So, go ahead keep watching that artificial plant gather dust, as you watch more tv!

A little blurb about which five plants eco-obsessed consumers ought to buy for their living rooms in order to feel better about their home's indoor air quality.

Where in this article is there any supporting evidence for these claims? Where are the studies that indicate that any plants, much less any of the five plants listed, are capable of removing and remediating toxic chemicals?

Believe me, I too am committed to environmental activism, but I think this kind of "sound byte" green media feeds the ignorance in our quickly dulling culture, where too much self-affirming media consumption only divides us, instead of unites us on the common ground of facts and analytic discussion.

Because we are building our homes to be highly insulated and sealed environments the sythetic materials that make up our modern day homes get trapped into the air we breath thus making it important t6o green lifestyles.

could you give at least little desc for each of the 5 plants?

Here is a talk that lists the plants that are best suited. http://www.ted.com/talks/kamal_meattle_on_how_to_grow_your_own_fresh_air.html