“Plants can purify the air we breathe! They remove harmful toxins!”
How many times have you heard this? Because I seriously hear it (and read it) all the time. You go to shop for plants, you’ll hear it, you talk to (self-proclaimed) plant influencers, you’ll hear it. Hell, books have been written about it. Most, or perhaps all, of this “knowledge” comes from one single study. But has anyone actually read the study that they keep referring to?
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So, let’s quickly dig into this study I mentioned above. The study was named the “NASA Clean Air Study” and researched what plants did to the air in a completely closed space (for example a space station). The most important thing to remember from that sentence is “closed space”. Their research and experiments found that some plants can reduce certain toxic particles, such as formaldehyde, in the air. But remember the two important words? Closed space. No ventilation, no windows, no doors. In other words, everything was under strict control. And the scientists also found that to accomplish this in a closed space, you would need at least one plant per 100 square feet (9.3 square meters). That quickly becomes a lot of plants for a space station or rocket! And this study is essentially what everyone has been referring to for years and years.
But in 2019, a new study was carried out by the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology. Basically what the results of this study says is that any kind of ventilation will disrupt your so called closed space, hence the results of the NASA study can’t be replicated at home. What’s more, they also found that for you to feel any real effect in a normal home, you would need over 90 plants per square foot… Do the math, that’s literally impossible! Sure, some of us plant lovers do have a LOT of plants at home, even in small rooms and tiny apartments, but most of us also have windows and doors, and some kind of ventilation.
But that NASA study really did a number on a lot of people, including journalists, bloggers, influencers and even plant growers/producers. Sometimes I feel like these people must know that plants don’t clean the air that well, and that they’re just publishing their articles, blog posts and instagram stories for likes, clicks and sales.
Dogs will definitely steal more of your precious night time oxygen than any plant ever could!
There are so many myths and deceptions in the plant world. For example you’ll hear some people say they don’t want plants in their bedroom because the plants will steal your oxygen at night. This is simply not true. Think about it, would you not let your pet or child sleep in your bedroom either, out of the fear that they’ll steal your oxygen?! I don’t think so. And believe me, breathing creatures use up much more oxygen than plants do…
The final answer to this common question then, is both yes and no. It depends on the surroundings (closed and small, open and big, ventilation, etcetera), and even on the type of plants you have. But to think that putting a snake plant in your bedroom will make you immune against that cold that’s been going around or perhaps a peace lily in the living room, to remove the ground-level ozone, that’s just pure nonsense.
Further reading: A Popular Benefit of Houseplants Is a Myth (The Atlantic)