The indoor plants in your office might look good and put you in touch with nature, but did you know that indoor plants are good for your health and well-being as well?

During the 70’s, NASA scientists conducted research on a range of plants and found that they are much more beneficial than once thought. They are responsible for not only removing CO2 from the air, but also other indoor air pollutants as well.

The air indoors contains volatile organic compounds (VOC’s). These gases are given off from modern building materials such as plastics, laminates, carpet and paint (examples of these are benzene, xylene and toluene).

Research has proven that these VOC’s are at much higher concentrations indoors than outdoors. In indoor office environments, these harmful VOC’s can build up and remain at high concentrations as air conditioner systems recycle most of the air and the filters fail to remove VOC’s.

Dr. Margaret Burchett, along with her colleagues at the Sydney University have been undertaking studies into the effectiveness of pot plants in reducing indoor air pollution, which has lead to positive results in confirming that plants are extremely efficient in reducing VOC’s to negligible levels.

Dr. Burchett found that plants exposed to high concentrations of VOC’s became more efficient at VOC removal, thus confirming that even a small presence of plants can have a big effect on VOC removal.

She also found that it was not only the leaves that remove VOC’s but also symbiotic bacteria on the plants roots simultaneously work to remove VOC’s as well. As concentrations of VOC’s increase indoors, these bacteria switch on enzymes in order to digest more materials and can also reproduce more rapidly.

The longer a plant remains indoors in a healthy state, the more efficient it becomes at the VOC removal process.

All plant species used in the trials at the Sydney University were found to be useful in the removal of VOC’s. Indoor plants remove CO2 from indoor air, this along with removal of VOC’s can allow for less fresh air to be cycled through air conditioners thus saving energy as this fresh air has to be cooled or heated.

Its hard to ignore the facts – information compiled by the Sydney University tells us that people feel better when working in aesthetically pleasing workplace environments utilising indoor plants. Research has shown that indoor plants help to lower stress and can increase productivity in the workplace by up to 12%.

So, what if you could have an inexpensive device in your office that can clean your air of harmful toxins, save energy, increase staff well-being, lower stress levels and increase productivity — you can, it’s called an indoor plant!

John McSweeney
Trans-Plant Indoor Plant Hire