The following is a true/false quiz about using plants
as air filters.
1. The average new air tight house can use plants to
clean the air?
2. Adding houseplants increases the microbes in the
air. This is due to increased humidity and growth
of molds and mildew.
3. Houseplants that accumulate toxins become saturated
and eventually become less effective.
----
Answers....
1. The average new house is a gas chamber and plants
are not able to clean the air.
2. Houseplants decrease the number of microbes in
the air.
3. Houseplants become more effective as they age
and not less effective.
These answers are from resent research and were taken
from the "America's National Organic Gardening Series"
of videos.
The conclusions of Dr Walford (retired NASA researcher) are
that todays houses have too many toxic building materials
and we need to deal with that first. Once the house
outgassing is reduced then plants are an ideal way to
clean the air.
Obviously, plants are useful in air tight houses and this
leads to one final question. Why is this technique
ignored by many green builders? I'm on a green building
list and few take plants seriously. They talk about venting,
filters, and air changes but not plants.
jeff
