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Unfortunately this myth, which I also once believed, has been debunked. You just need waaaay too many plants to actually have an effect. The tests the myth were based on all assumed a closed system, which just isn't realistic.

From one randomly googled article on the myth of house plants cleaning the air:

"To remove toxins, you would need at least 10 plants per square foot."



To remove how many "toxins" exactly? Like, let's say I actually have a shitload of plants, like my ceiling is just lined with peace lilies. Presumably there is some % of something being removed, I'd be curious to hear what that is.


Well "toxins" is ill defined.

But CO2... to simplify imagine being a vegetarian, how much plant matter would you eat in a day? How much plant matter grew in one day in your houseplants? The only way plants are going to fix carbon is by adding it to their own mass. Just think about a conservation of carbon atoms. There's no way any plants in your apartment are going to make a dent in the carbon cycle of your personal environment.

There are arguments to be made for lots of things sticking to or getting sucked into the leaves of plants... maybe if there were a whole lot of plants a meaningful amount of VOCs or other pollutants could be removed... maybe.




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