NASA’s Clean Air Study found these houseplants removed up to 90 percent of air toxins in a sealed room within 24 hours
During the energy crunch of the late 1970s, Americans started building air-tight, super-insulated buildings.
These energy-efficient buildings significantly reduced electricity bills, but came along with a new set of problems.
The lack of fresh-air flow, combined with off-gassing from synthetic building materials and furniture, created a new health condition known as “sick building syndrome.”
Office workers breathing nearly 100-percent-recycled air all day began complaining of itchy eyes, skin rashes, drowsiness, headaches and allergies.
As the manufacturer of the most air-tight “office” spaces in the world, NASA began working on a solution to indoor pollution in the 1980s. Here’s what they came up with: houseplants.
Below is a list of the best indoor-air-cleaning houseplants, according to NASA’s 1989 study.
As well as soaking up carbon dioxide and creating fresh oxygen for you to breathe, the following plants also all eliminate impressive amounts of the common indoor air toxins benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene.
Here are the Top 10 air cleaners:
English Ivy removed 90 percent of dangerous levels of benzene injected into a sealed room:
Mass Cane removed 70 percent of formaldehyde:
Gerbera Daisy removed 50 percent of formaldehyde and 68 percent of benzene:
removed 79 percent of benzene:
Warneckei removed 50 percent of formaldehyde and 70 percent of benzene:
Golden Pothos removed 73 percent of benzene:
Snake Plant removed 53 percent of benzene. The snake plant is also one of the few plants that continues emitting oxygen (rather than reabsorbing it) at night, and is therefore safe to keep in your bedroom!
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15 responses to “Top 10 Houseplants for Oxygenating and Filtering Indoor Air, According to NASA”
Tq.
Thank you, Sara.
As a Feng Shui consultant I often suggest one of these plants for health and to bring nature and “life force energy” into the home.
A wonderful suggestion for holiday gift giving.
Thank you, Sara. As a feng shui consultant I often suggest one of these plants for health and to bring nature and “life force energy” into the home. One of these plants would be great idea for holiday gift giving.
That’s great!
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Are any of these cat safe? If not, can you recommend cat safe plants?
May the force of google be with you 😉
I have a small, dark house. If I try to grow house plants, they die too soon. I have two large windows, and if I put a plant there, it fries!
Pathos will grow well with little light.
Suggest a full-spectrum daylight bulb in a lamp or light fixture where you want to have the plants. I believe they’re available in LED bulbs now.
Direct sunlight through any window is rarely good for plants; the infrared (heat) waves in the light are amplified. Also, if it’s a single-pane glass window, cold can be as bad as heat.
shade for window?
Sara, why are you recycling this news from the year you were born? I’m certain the 1989 report was recycled from the first study done in the 1970s. Many of these plants are so out of fashion that they’re not even sold. Furthermore, some are impossible to grow in a typical house. Gerbera? Come on!
Please write something worth reading.
pretty negative reply. I am interested and I lived through the 80’s.
I agree that it is lovely these clean air. But I have never lived in a house that had enough light for several of these. I’m all for clean air and good Feng Shui, but I thought it was bad Feng Shui to have a dead plant in your house….
Can’t you just be nice and move on? There isn’t a single plant on this list not available in S FL.