Air purification in an apartment with plants

Home mud

We imagine our sweet home is perfectly clean just because we regularly polish our floors and polish our furniture. No matter how it is! According to last year’s study by the French Association for the Monitoring of Indoor Air Quality, in 9% of apartments, specialists found an increased concentration of chemicals that can cause allergies, respiratory diseases, chronic fatigue … We live in an invisible eye and odorless dirt. Formaldehyde, benzene, tetrachlorethylene, toluene – these difficult-to-pronounce names designate molecules that live in chipboard furniture, carpets, wallpaper, cigarettes, clothes returned from dry cleaning. Add in a variety of air fresheners, mold particles, and ammonia found in household chemicals and the list is almost complete! If you want to know in detail what we are poisoning with, go to www.chemical-cocktail.org.

Who is where?

Some plants are capable of trapping pollution from the air, purifying it. Here’s our pick.

Kitchen

To neutralize formaldehyde emitted by furniture from chipboard and ammonia of cleaning agents, we prepare pots for Palm trees rapeseed (Rhapis excelsa), anthurium andre (Anthurium andreanum) or the dwarf palm of the hamedorea graceful (Chamaedorea elegans).

Living room

Sources of pollution here are both numerous and varied (furniture, electrical appliances, smoke, glue, varnish), so we rely on a “cocktail” of indoor plants: ficus, Chlorophytum and the moon flower spathiphyllum (Spathiphyllum hybride).

Bathroom

In addition to formaldehyde and ammonia, the fragrances of perfumes (shampoos, soaps, candles, perfumes) contain benzene. What to do? Settle in the bathroom azalea (Rododendron indicum), croton (Codiaeum variegatum) and bamboo palm (Chamaedorea seifrizii).

cabinet

The best absorber of computer electromagnetic radiation – cactus (Cereus peruvianus), and with xylene, which printers emit, will do just fine boston fern (Nephrolepis exaltata bostoniensis). (Read more about plants for the cabinet read here.)

Bedroom

A high-risk area where furniture, textiles, more or less chemically treated, carpets are concentrated … english ivy (Hedera helix), dracaena (Dracaena warneckii) and reed palm (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens).

Wardrobe

Dracaena marginata, gerbera jamesonii and moonflower destroy formaldehyde and trichlorethylene, one of the compounds used in dry cleaning.

Workshop

With the tools in place, line up the pike-tail (Sansevieria trifasciata) pots, chrysanthemums and English ivy to neutralize pesticides.