Kamal Meattle had a problem with breathing: he was allergic to the New Delhi air around him. Rather than walking around with an oxygen tank all day, Kamal (with the help of NASA) found a way to grow his own fresh air indoors by combining 3 easy-to-find household plants. The three plants are the Areca Palm, Mother-in-law’s Tongue, and the Money Plant. Here’s what you need to know about how the plants can help purify your air.

The Living Room Plant
Areca Palm (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens): converts CO2 into Oxygen. For each person in the home/building, you need four shoulder height plants, and the leaves need to be wiped about once a week (or once a day if the air is as dirty as it is in New Delhi), and they need to be taken outdoors every 3-4 months.

The Bedroom Plant
Mother-in-law’s Tongue (Sansevieria trifasciata): converts CO2 into Oxygen at night. There needs to be 6-8 waist height plants per person, but they don’t require much maintenance.

The Specialist Plant
Money Plant (Epipremnum aureum): removes formaldehyde and other harmful chemicals from the air.

Kamal claims that if you were put in a bottle with nothing but these three plants, they would constantly produce enough fresh air for you to stay alive.

The true test of this 3-plant system was at a 50,000 square foot building which required over 1,200 plants for the 300 building occupants. For 15 years these plants created clean and fresh air for the New Delhi building, and found that there was a good chance being in the building for only 10 hours would raise the oxygen level in one’s blood by 1%. There has been reduced eye irritations, respiratory problems, headaches, and they’ve noticed a huge jump in productivity. It’s no wonder the government of India named it the healthiest building in New Delhi.

Try it out for yourself by picking up some of these plants for your home or office and seeing how much better you feel.

Photo credit: Plant Craft

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