We all love having plants in our homes, don't we? They look beautiful and make our spaces feel fresh and lively. Many of us also believe that these green friends are like secret superheroes, working hard to clean the bad stuff from the air we breathe indoors. It's a comforting thought, especially as we hear more about how important clean indoor air is. But what do scientists actually say about whether our houseplants truly clean the air? Let's find out!
The Famous NASA Plant Study
The big idea that houseplants clean the air mostly comes from a special study done by NASA (the space people!) way back in 1989. NASA needed to figure out how to keep the air clean for astronauts in their spaceships, so they looked at plants for help.
What That NASA Study Really Said About Plants and Air
In this NASA study, led by Dr B.C. Wolverton, they showed that certain plants could remove bad chemicals, like invisible gases called VOCs (imagine tiny bits of bad air), from special, sealed glass boxes. These boxes were very small and completely closed off – almost like tiny, plant-filled rooms where the plants took up most of the space. The study was super important for those special boxes, showing plants might help in very small, closed places like a spaceship.
But here’s the important part: people often forget how small and special those boxes were!
Beyond the Buzz: Why Plants Don't Clean Much in Your Home
It’s very different to go from a super-controlled lab box to a normal living room. Your home is not a tiny, sealed box.
Can a Few Snake Plants Clean the Air in My Whole Apartment?
The simple answer, according to scientists today, is no. Even though a snake plant can take in some bad bits from the air, your apartment has a huge amount of air. To clean all that air, you'd need so many plants that your home would look like an impassable jungle! So, a few plants won't make a big difference in a regular home.
How Many Plants Do You Really Need?
Newer studies that looked at the old NASA findings say you would need hundreds, maybe even thousands, of plants packed into every little bit of your room to clean the air as they did in NASA's tiny boxes. Imagine trying to walk through that! So, trying to count "how many plants" isn't really a useful question for your home.
How Plants Do Their Little Bit of Cleaning: Leaves and Soil
It's not just the leaves that do the cleaning work. While leaves do take in some bad gases, a lot of the cleaning happens thanks to tiny living things (we often call them microbes or invisible helpers!) that live in the plant's soil. These tiny soil microbes actually eat up and break down the bad chemicals.
Other Cool Ways Plants Make Our Air Better (Besides Cleaning Chemicals)
Even if plants don't clean many chemicals from the air in a big room, they do help us in other important ways:
a. More Moisture: They can make the air a bit wetter, which is nice if you live in a very dry place.
b. Happy Feelings! Plants make us feel happier, less stressed, and can even help us focus better. Scientists agree these are real benefits that have nothing to do with air chemicals!
c. CO2: Plants do take in carbon dioxide (the gas we breathe out), but the few plants in your home don't take in much compared to what you breathe out, or what fresh air coming in does.
Plants vs. Air Purifiers: What's Better for Really Dirty Air?
If the air is extremely polluted, as in some major cities, and you compare it to special machines that clean air, scientists have a very clear answer.
Air Purifiers Win for Really Dirty Air (Like in Delhi Homes!)
In places with lots of pollution, like Delhi, special machines called air purifiers (which have special filters) work much, much better than plants. These machines suck in tons of air and clean out dust, things that make you sneeze, and all sorts of bad chemicals – way faster than plants ever could.
So, if you want your air to be truly clean, especially from tiny dust particles and lots of different chemicals, an air purifying machine is definitely the winner.
Let's Be Honest About What Plants Can Do
It's important to understand what plants can really do for air cleaning, not just what we hope they can do.
The Simple Truth: Plants Do a Little, Not a Lot
While the idea that plants clean the air isn't completely wrong, we often think they do much more than they actually do in a normal home. The main thing to remember is: plants do only a tiny bit to clean the air compared to opening a window for fresh air or using an air cleaning machine.
"Best Plants" for Toxins? (Still a Tiny Impact)
Even with all this, some plants like Peace Lilies, Spider Plants, and Boston Ferns did show they could help with specific bad chemicals in those tiny lab boxes. But even if we call them the "best plants for specific bad stuff," remember, they will still only make a very small difference in your home.
The Real Superpowers of Plants!
So, should you throw out your plants? Absolutely not!
Even if they don't clean many chemicals from the air, scientists do agree that plants help us in many other big ways:
Mood Boost: Plants make us feel happier.
Less Stress: They help us feel calm and less worried.
Better Focus: They can help us think more clearly.
Healing: They might even help us get better when we're sick.
Nature Connection: Caring for plants and being around green things makes us feel good and closer to nature.
All these wonderful things, combined with knowing what plants can and cannot do, make them super important and lovely additions to any home.
To sum it up: Plants make our homes look beautiful and help us feel good, but they are not the main way to clean very dirty air indoors. For truly clean air, opening windows for fresh air and using air purifying machines are the best ways.
So, love your green plant friends for their beauty, their calming presence, and the little bit of good they do, but remember that making your air truly clean needs more than just a few potted plants!
