Science Forums 2

[Michaelangelica]

More interesting indoor plants are urgently needed. especially in hotels, lecture theaters, cinemas and office blocks. they reduce polution, oxgenate the air and lock up CO2 reducing our greenhouse problem(even better if in a Terra preta potting mix)

The Benefits of Indoor Plants

Adjunct Professor Margaret Burchett at the University of Technology Sydney led a number of trials with plants placed inside large airtight glass containers or chambers.

Common pollutant chemicals were pumped into the containers and the researchers were astonished at how much of the pollution was gobbled up – totally gone. It turned out that the microbes in the potting mix in association with the plant were doing the work.

Three large pot plants per room (that’s floor-standing sized plants like these) are enough to clean the air to the point where contaminants are negligible.

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In what Professor Burchett terms a “dungeon” (basement) or window-tight situation, there is a toxic mixture of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) found in indoor air. Although these compounds are present indoors in low individual concentrations, they are capable of producing toxic symptoms in humans — and the cocktail can be addictive, or even synergistic in its effects.
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Dominant VOC toxicity symptoms are sore eyes, nose and throat; a feeling of dizziness; loss of concentration; headaches; mild nausea; faint disorientation; and mildly depersonalised feelings. These are the same symptoms present in “sick building syndrome” or “building-related illness”.

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can achieve a complete removal of VOCs in 24 hours in a closed chamber with no ventilation, and a 10 to 20 per cent reduction in flow-through conditions.

These removal rates rise with increasing VOC concentrations, which have been tested from five to 1000 parts per million in the case of benzine (where the occupational maximum indoor concentration in Australia is five ppm, averaged over an eight-hour day)
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it was found that pot plants reduced by one third the build-up of nitrogen oxides in houses with gas fires and stoves, which produce these compounds.

A recent Swedish study to improve the indoor environment in an x-ray unit situated in a hospital “dungeon”, demonstrated conclusively that pot plants not only achieved a substantial reduction in total VOCs in the indoor air but also reduced worker absenteeism by 60 per cent.

According to Professor Burchett, UTS research has confirmed the potential of potted plants as a portable, mass-marketable, integrated biofiltration system to improve indoor air quality.

“Urban dwellers often spend more than 80 per cent of their time indoors, so indoor air quality is a major health consideration. Potted plants will be increasingly used as a flexible indoor biofiltration system, as well as for beautifying indoor spaces.”

The World Health Organisation report, The Right to Healthy Indoor Air, published in 2000, highlights increasing recognition of a legal obligation on the part of owners and managers to supply healthy air for the occupants, and consequently the trend to using customised plant boxes as part of that solution has already commenced in some countries.


See also http://www.aih.org.au/mburchett_transcript_040305.pdf for a transcript of a talk Prof Burchett gave to the Australian Institute of Horticulture

The Benefits of Indoor Plants - Sustainable Gardening Australia