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Could you get a few more plants around the house? Plants can remove things like benzene, formaldehyde, xylene, and toluene. Maybe not the fastest but certainly

by 14 6y ago

Could you get a few more plants around the house? Plants can remove things like benzene, formaldehyde, xylene, and toluene. Maybe not the fastest but certainly don't cost much once you have them.

freddie_mercury 6y ago
Unfortunately this myth, which I also once believed, has been debunked. You just need waaaay too many plants to actually have an effect. The tests the myth were based on all assumed a closed system, which just isn't realistic. From one randomly googled article on the myth of house plants cleaning the air: "To remove toxins, you would need at least 10 plants per square foot."
- staticassertion 6y ago
  To remove how many "toxins" exactly? Like, let's say I actually have a shitload of plants, like my ceiling is just lined with peace lilies. Presumably there is some % of something being removed, I'd be curious to hear what that is.
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    Well "toxins" is ill defined. But CO2... to simplify imagine being a vegetarian, how much plant matter would you eat in a day? How much plant matter grew in one day in your houseplants? The only way plants are going to fix carbon is by adding it to their own mass. Just think about a conservation of carbon atoms. There's no way any plants in your apartment are going to make a dent in the carbon cycle of your personal environment. There are arguments to be made for lots of things sticking to or getting sucked into the leaves of plants... maybe if there were a whole lot of plants a meaningful amount of VOCs or other pollutants could be removed... maybe.
colechristensen 6y ago
If you think about it you have to grow an amount of plant matter comparable to the amount of food you eat in order to maintain levels (considerably less of course because a lot of carbon goes down the toilet, but still a fixed fraction, this would take full sun an a considerable area, like a fraction of an acre)

by 14 6y ago

Could you get a few more plants around the house? Plants can remove things like benzene, formaldehyde, xylene, and toluene. Maybe not the fastest but certainly don't cost much once you have them.

freddie_mercury 6y ago

Unfortunately this myth, which I also once believed, has been debunked. You just need waaaay too many plants to actually have an effect. The tests the myth were based on all assumed a closed system, which just isn't realistic. From one randomly googled article on the myth of house plants cleaning the air: "To remove toxins, you would need at least 10 plants per square foot."

staticassertion 6y ago
To remove how many "toxins" exactly? Like, let's say I actually have a shitload of plants, like my ceiling is just lined with peace lilies. Presumably there is some % of something being removed, I'd be curious to hear what that is.
- colechristensen 6y ago
  Well "toxins" is ill defined. But CO2... to simplify imagine being a vegetarian, how much plant matter would you eat in a day? How much plant matter grew in one day in your houseplants? The only way plants are going to fix carbon is by adding it to their own mass. Just think about a conservation of carbon atoms. There's no way any plants in your apartment are going to make a dent in the carbon cycle of your personal environment. There are arguments to be made for lots of things sticking to or getting sucked into the leaves of plants... maybe if there were a whole lot of plants a meaningful amount of VOCs or other pollutants could be removed... maybe.

colechristensen 6y ago

If you think about it you have to grow an amount of plant matter comparable to the amount of food you eat in order to maintain levels (considerably less of course because a lot of carbon goes down the toilet, but still a fixed fraction, this would take full sun an a considerable area, like a fraction of an acre)