Subject: Looking for deepest-breathing houseplants!

From: [email-masked] (Matt)
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 96 19:08:38 GMT

I need to find out which readily-available house plants are best at 
converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. They would be for my London (UK) top 
floor room (quite hot & sticky in summer), with adequate lighting at its 
brightest in the mornings.

This high transpiration rate is needed to counteract the excess CO2 in London, 
especially when living near a main road!

All comments by email or follow-ups will be very welcome.

Blissful gardening,

Matt.

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From: Alison Brooks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 19:49:16 +0100

In article <[email-masked]>, Matt
<[email-masked]> writes
>All comments by email or follow-ups will be very welcome.
As a general rule, the fastest-growing ones! Smother your house with
ivy, tradescantia, etc. Of course, you won't be able to move within a
few weeks, and will have to thin them back. As you live in a flat, you
won't be composting them, which is good for your purposes, as
decomposition releases the CO2 again. However, I'm sure you wouldn't
want to add to the waste problem by just throwing them away, so I
suggest you post them to gardening friends, who can complete the cycle
by composting, thus exporting the CO2 from central London to the
country. What a wonderfully ecological idea! Send me a few: I can always
use more compost.

Seriously, I've seen it said in various gardening mags that houseplants
(spider plants were mentioned specifically, I remember) can remove
various pollutants from the air, apart from CO2. Sounds well worth the
gamble if you live in a city!

(Mind you, choose your plants carefully: Eucalyptus, for instance,
release volatile organic compounds, which make them a net polluter.)

-- 
Alison Brooks  

O-

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From: Bob & Sandie Flett <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 01:08:11 +0800

Alison Brooks wrote:
> O-You are right about the spider plant-Chlorophytum.I read an article
last year that said it was the most efficient air purifier in the house
plant area.To avoid browning of leaves,give them a large pot as the 
root system is vigorous and they soon use all available nutrients,which
means they need regular feeding as well.I have the 
green/white,white/green and the plain green.Mine are in the garden 
though,as I don't seem to be able to keep any plant alive inside.I live
in Perth Western Australia.Sandie.

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From: [email-masked] (Kirk Nechamkin)
Date: 30 Jul 1996 18:10:45 -0400

Alison Brooks ([email-masked]) wrote:

: Seriously, I've seen it said in various gardening mags that houseplants
: (spider plants were mentioned specifically, I remember) can remove
: various pollutants from the air, apart from CO2. Sounds well worth the
: gamble if you live in a city!

I try very hard to ignore people who insist that pollutants are
everywhere -- especially when they try and sell me a product that
will rid my environment of them.

Just two days ago, some salesman comes knocking on my door. He 
insisted that my drinking water (tap-water) was dangerous to
my health because it contained CHLORINE. Now, when I think of
dangerous drinking water, I think of elevated lead and copper
levels -- not chlorine.

Then, he goes on to say how chlorine can cause cancer, and proceeds
to give me an in-home demonstration. 

He had me fill up two glasses of water. Then passed one through
his portable filter and had me sniff the two. I *SWEAR* I could
smell a pronounced difference. He threw in a couple drops of what
he said was a pH indicator, and one glass turned yellow, while
the other stayed clear.

Did I buy a water filter? No.

Why not? Well, everyone I know has been drinking the water for eons
and eons, and I've never heard of chlorine levels in drinking water
to be dangerous in New York. In fact, my grandmother, 92, loves it
and won't drink anything by tap-water.

Besides which, he wanted to sell me the 200-dollar model, which
can somehow be hooked up to my kitchen sink. At WallMart, I can
buy Britta (sp?) for $19.95, which I suppose will do the job.

What made me realize the guy was nuts was his insisting that the
water was even MORE dangerous to SHOWER in, than to DRINK. He
wanted to sell me a SHOWER filter (can you believe it?).

I mean, I could have 20 different filters on my piping system
and still get hit by a car tomorrow (God forbid).

-Kirk

: (Mind you, choose your plants carefully: Eucalyptus, for instance,
: release volatile organic compounds, which make them a net polluter.)

: -- 
: Alison Brooks  

: O-

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From: Clarke Brunt <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 23:06:34 +0100

>especially when living near a main road!

Don't know any specific plants, but presumably the ones that grow fastest
and produce the most bulk of plant material would be best, since they
need the carbon to incorporate in their structure, giving off the oxygen
as waste.

I don't think 'transpiration' is the correct word. This just means loss
of water to the air. It's 'photosynthesis' which turns CO2 into useful things,
and all the time there's 'respiration' going on as well, which is turning
oxygen back into CO2, especially at night when there is no light. Still, there
should be a net absorption of CO2. I suspect it is wishful thinking to expect
this to make much difference to the atmosphere in a room, unless the room
was sealed and absolutely packed with well-illuminated plants.

-- 
Clarke Brunt ([email-masked])

---

From: [email-masked] (Brian Watson)
Date: Thu, 01 Aug 1996 12:35:54 GMT

>> gamble if you live in a city!
I seem to remember this being featured on a "Tommorrows World"
program. A company had developed a 'turbo' air cleaner. First they
tested the gasses present in an office and then selected from their
database of plants the ones that would most effectively reduce the
pollutants that were present. These plants were then supplied in a pot
than had an extractor fan underneath. The fan sucked air through the
soil. Apparrently the soil acts as a first point of adsorbtion. The
pollutants were dissolved in the water or oils within the soil. As the
plant takes up these solutions it 'digests' the pollutants into
harmless byproducts.

Technically of course CO2 is not a pollutant but a natural point in
the carbon cycle of life. It only really causes a problem when it
collects in high concentrations in the upper atmosphere causing the
Greenhouse effect. The real inner city pollutants such as Carbon
Monoxide, Sulphure Dioxide, Nitrogen Dioxide are truely harmful to
life and are the ones you should be looking for plants to remove.

Does anyone have a list of plants together with the pollutants they
are best at removing?

Brian
-------------
Brian Watson
All opinions expressed are my own and  not my employers

[email-masked]
-------------------------------

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From: [email-masked] (B A Cragg)
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 13:10:56 GMT

Matt ([email-masked]) wrote:
: I need to find out which readily-available house plants are best at 
: converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. They would be for my London (UK) top 
: floor room (quite hot & sticky in summer), with adequate lighting at its 
: brightest in the mornings.
: 
: This high transpiration rate is needed to counteract the excess CO2 in London, 
: especially when living near a main road!

Well the fastest way to remove CO2 is going to be to set up an aquarioum
air pump with a diffuser stone at the end of the plastic tube and dip this
into a large jar/small tank of sodium hydroxide. That will completely
remove CO2 from all air passed through it.

BAZZA

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From: Lyn Wilkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 14:46:19 GMT

> Does anyone have a list of plants together with the pollutants they

NASA and ALCA(Associated Landscape Contractors of America) produced a 
report quite some time ago. They used various plants in their trials 
including:- Dracaena, Chrysanthemum, Gerbera, Ficus, Hedera and 
Chlorophytum.

Plants were housed in sealed experimental chambers, where they were 
exposed to the chemicals listed below for 24 hours.  Air samples were 
then drawn off, and showed between 5 and 70% reduction. 

The chemicals that the plants were exposed to were Formaldehyde, Benzene 
and Trichlorethylene. 

They then completed the same experiment with defoliated plants, and the 
dracaena removed more benzene than the plants with foliage.!

The conclusion was "This suggests that the plant roots and their 
associated micro-organisms are the major pathway for chemical removal, 
at least in this study. ..."  

"...for the soil to be highly effective in removing indoor air 
pollutants, plants must be growing in this soil."