World Space Week (4 – 10th October) was celebrated around the world in as many as 55 countries by astronomy societies, museums, planetariums, schools, colleges and other organisations
NASA’s programme of space travel provided us with most of the research results we have today about the benefits of plants.
It was in the early 1980’s when Dr Bill Wolverton was called in by NASA after a space shuttle had returned to Earth with its air full of toxins. Wolverton was tasked to find a way to keep the air inside the shuttle or in future space station ‘clean’.
He looked at how chemical weapons had dispersed more quickly in highly planted areas (Agent Orange and Sarin used in the jungles of Vietnam) to discover what or if the vegetation had to do with it.
It was from this that we got the groundbreaking study about how plants work to clean the atmosphere of toxins both indoors and out.
Simply plants absorb toxins in the air like carbon dioxide and take them down into the root area where microbes living there turn the toxins into food for the plant. In return the plant emits oxygen for us to breathe.
From this a plethora of research has exploded over the years to show us just how much plants can do for us and how much we need them.
eFIG, the industry association for interior landscapers has collected much of this research over the years; a synopsis document can be downloaded from their website: