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