For years, people have thought that houseplants could clean indoor air. All you needed to do to freshen up your house was to add certain plants, depending on the pollutants that you thought were in your home. Unfortunately, it now looks like this is not really the case. The studies that promoted this thinking did find some benefit, but it was not nearly as extensive as previously thought. If you want to really keep your home’s air clean, you’ll need a great air purification system to do most of the work.
How the Houseplant Theory Started
Back in 1989, NASA conducted a study that showed that certain species of houseplants could clean out one or more chemical pollutants from the air inside a room. These pollutants included volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) such as formaldehyde, which can off-gas from materials like new carpets. Additional studies by different organizations started to find the same results. People were thrilled because owning a houseplant that could clear VOCs from the air seemed like such an easy fix for a potentially dangerous situation.
What Newer Studies Show
However, when researchers took a look at all the studies in 2019, they noticed something about the test conditions in these studies. The conditions were rigorous, but unrealistic. Placing one plant in a small, isolated enclosure to measure the plant’s effects on the air, for example, is very different from putting one or two plants in your much larger kitchen.
As another example, one of the earlier studies that took place in real-world conditions focused on a factory with 1,200 plants. Your home isn’t going to have 1,200 plants indoors. The conclusion of this larger study review in 2019 was that you could get the same air-cleaning benefits as these studies did only if you crammed houseplants into just about every square inch of your home.
Houseplants Have Limited Air-Cleaning Benefits
The houseplants you’d realistically have in your home won’t have the same effects that the plants did in those earlier studies. That’s not to say the plants won’t clean anything out of the air — if the studies measured something, then the plants do have that ability. It’s just that the stellar effects seen in the studies relied on the presence of masses of plants in larger spaces. That’s much different than what people had long assumed.
They Have Some Downsides, Too
Any air-cleaning ability requires the plants be in good health. Sometimes, houseplants can worsen indoor air quality, such as when they’ve been overwatered and they have moldy or rotting soil. This means you need to take excellent care of the houseplants you have so that they don’t contribute more pollution to the inside of your home.
If you really want to improve the air quality inside your home, you need a very good air purification and ventilation system that filters the air, removing those pollutants. Rather than relying on houseplants to do the job, call today to arrange for indoor air quality service in North Salt Lake, UT with Alta Air.