One of the easiest and most common ways to get rid of indoor air pollution is to use house plants. As it turns out, plants do make a difference in the quality of the indoor air around a home. Indoor plants have long been used as a method of indoor gardening. The fact is that they are extremely effective at eliminating pollutants from indoor air, even if they are grown primarily outdoors, but for many people the question of indoor gardening is not so easy to answer.
You see, indoor plants have their own special set of problems that come with them. Take for instance the chemical called formaldehyde. This chemical is used widely in house plants to prevent fungal infections during dry periods. Unfortunately, this same chemical is one of the most dangerous indoor air pollutants that we know of today. Formaldehyde is deadly and has been proven to cause cancer in lab rats, so you can imagine how frightening an agent like this is.
Many plants contain formaldehyde in higher concentrations than the amount considered safe by the EPA, which should tell you how potent this substance is. When it comes to eliminating the health risks associated with this chemical the solution is very simple. The best solution to house plants clean air is to use an indoor gardening system that removes or replaces any materials that contain formaldehyde. With a little work on your part and some research I am certain that you can find something that will effectively remove all formaldehyde and other harmful chemicals from your indoor air.
A lot of indoor gardening systems simply don’t have the capacity to handle the amount of vocs that are released from house plants. If your system is designed to handle small amounts of vocs then good news, you have the best plants for your house. The best plants for your house are the ones that are naturally clean air friendly. To be more specific indoor gardening systems that remove formaldehyde and similar chemicals are the best plants for your clean air. For indoor plants the best plants are vinca minor.
Vinca minor is considered to be the most environmental friendly plant on the planet. It doesn’t release large amounts of formaldehyde into the air and it doesn’t release large amounts of any other volatile organic compounds (VOC). While the EPA claims that Vinca minor does not cause cancer, it is considered to be an irritant. Since the irritation can be minimized if the plants are placed far away from humans, it’s considered to be one of the best plants for your house because it produces little to no pollution.
One of the major causes of cancer is formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is commonly found in a number of different products including nail polish, hair styling agents, paints, and roofing shingles. It is extremely hazardous to your health and there are no laws currently in existence that require companies to remove formaldehyde from their products. If they don’t, the state will force them to pay a significant fine. As a result the majority of the products in your house plants clean themselves by removing formaldehyde and other toxic chemicals from the air they are exposed to every day.
Now while there isn’t a solution to eliminating all of the pollutants in the air we can certainly make the air we breathe better by using simple house plants that clean themselves. I recommend only putting one plant per 100 sq feet because too many plants means you are being over sprayed with chemicals. Too many plants means there are more polluting elements entering the atmosphere. This means more chemicals being released into the air and that mean more pollutants. It’s a simple problem but a very serious one.
The best plants to use to clean air are the plants that will trap pollutants on their leaves such as the house plant known as the areca palm. These plants have spines that extend up to 40mm and these spines have very strong enzymes that break down pollutants. If you want to use a house plant to create this clean air then plant the areca palm. If you want to clean the air in your car then plant the areca palm in the passenger side.