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Friday, October 03, 2003
Clean Air Watch:
DID you know that houseplants are the simple answer to improving indoor air quality?
Bill Wolverton, author of "How to grow fresh air: 50 houseplants that purify your home or office," worked almost 20 years for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) of the US, developing technology that would allow humans to live in a closed environment on the moon or Mars.
Through this pioneering research, he discovered that houseplants are the quickest and most effective filters of common dangerous air pollutants, which include formaldehyde, benzene, xylene and ammonia. All cause a number of ailments such as asthma, allergies and the broader illness now recognized as sick building syndrome.
Wolverton and his colleagues have placed houseplants in sealed chambers and exposed them to hundreds of chemicals. "We've found that plants suck these chemicals out of the air," he says. "After some study, we unraveled the mystery of how plants can act as the lungs and kidneys of buildings."
Plants clean indoor air in two ways. They absorb pollutants into their leaves and transmit the toxins to their roots, where they are transformed into a source of food for the plant. And they emit water vapors that create a pumping action to pull dirty air down around the roots, where it is once again converted into food for the plant.
(October 3, 2003 issue)
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