Having just five pot plants in an office could improve air quality by a fifth, a new study claims.
The Royal Horticultural Society study suggests that having five small plants in a modestly sized office could reduce levels of nitrogen dioxide, a common pollutant linked to respiratory disease, by as much as 20%.
The researchers tested three houseplants which they said were easy to maintain and not overly expensive – the peace lily (spathiphyllum wallisii), the corn plant (dracaena fragrans) and the fern arum (zamioculcas zamiifolia).
Each was placed in a 150-litre test chamber containing levels of NO2 – which comes from vehicles, fireplaces and stoves – comparable to an office situated next to a busy road.
Over the course of an hour, the team found that all of the plants were able to remove about half the NO2 in the chamber, regardless of conditions.
