Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Three Plants That Can Improve Your Air Quality

Seventeen years ago, Kamal Meattle began to have trouble breathing. Upon seeing a doctor, tests concluded that his lung capacity had declined to 70% and that the cause was an allergy to the pollutants in his home in New Delhi. Meattle, a business owner and activist, began immediate research into various plants and their ability to convert CO2 to oxygen and cleanse and produce cleaner air. After fifteen years of research, testing, and trials, he concluded that the three plants shown below have been proven to effectively cleanse and produce the indoor oxygen that we breathe.

  1. The Areca Palm: This plant is great for cleansing the air during the day. Meattle has suggested about four shoulder height plants per person.
  2. The Mother-in-law's Tongue: This plant takes over by converting CO2 to O2 at night. You might want six to eight of these waist high plants per person.
  3. The Money Plant: This plant does an excellent job of removing Formaldehyde and other VOC's (Volatile Organic Compounds).

According to Meattle, with sufficient quantities of these plants you could live in an air tight bubble and as long as the plants are kept alive, they could produce enough fresh air to live. While this theory may seem too good to be true, he has been testing this theory out in his main office building by replacing massive banks of HVAC equipment with massive banks of plants instead (roughly 1,200 plants for the buildings 300 occupants).

The verdict? The Indian Government has rated the building the healthiest building in Delhi, and studies have shown that after spending ten hours in the building, your body will be working better than it was before.

Aside from being a natural and beautiful source of fresh oxygen and air purification, this method can also help immensely with energy consumption, as it reduces the need to filter or bring fresh air in.

For more information on how to grow your own fresh air, and to hear about the study directly from Meattle himself, check out the video below.

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