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You've probably heard plants can improve your air quality.
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Just about every paper on the subject, and I mean literally all of them, are based on a 1989 NASA study and a follow up by the lead scientist.
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The scientists collected plants and put them in chambers, then pumped in harmful chemicals like these.
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(Ammonia, Trichloroethylene, Formaldehyde, Xylene, Benzene)
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After 24 hours, they tested the air quality in each chamber.
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Some plants were able to remove up to 90% of the harmful chemicals.
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So which plants were the most effective?
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NASA scientists tested familiar ones.
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All the plants they have in their list are just very common house plants.
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This is Dr. Dennis Stevenson, Vice President for science at the New York Botanical Garden.
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I think they picked them because they were looking at things that people would have in their environments.
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As opposed to some exotic, weird tropical plant that nobody knows anything about.
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All of these plants are excellent at getting rid of harmful indoor carcinogens.
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(Boston fern, gerbera daisy, peace lily, snake plant, Chinese evergreen)
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(Carcinogen: an agent that can cause cancer in humans.)
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Here's how it works:
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Plants take in the harmful gasses out of the atmosphere and sequester them in their roots and cells.
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Some of these chemicals are broken down by fungi in the soil and others are stored in the plant.
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So what about things like...smoke, that might be in your apartment via cigarettes.
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Or you know...other types of smoke.
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Well I would say, they take up stuff in the atmosphere so theoretically they should take up any kind of smoke that's in your apartment in a certain sense, right.
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I don't really know.
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But I think if one did those tests that probably one would find a positive correlation with that.
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(Positive correlation between plants and removing smoke.)
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Of all of the plants NASA mentioned in its study, these three have the best surface area to chemical removal ratio.
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(gerbera daisy, English Ivy, snake plant)
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But keep in mind that a gerbera daisy will never get as big as a lady palm.
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And the more plant you have, the more harmful chemicals that you can remove.
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A big leaf plant is probably, potentially able to exchange more things with the air you know than something with little needle leaves.
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And for those lacking a green thumb?
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I'll tell you, the one in there that's probably the hardest to kill is the sansevieria, the mother in law's tongue.
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It scores high on removing chemicals and only needs low light.
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Hello everyone, if you'd like to learn more about the plants or the experiments done by NASA, check out the description below.
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You'll find a more detailed account of which plants are mentioned at the beginning of the video.
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If you're looking to buy some of these plants or want to learn how to take care of them, don't forget to check out your local nursery.