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In a World of constant social media and information from all directions, the thought of tackling a cleaner environment or Climate change can seem formidable and unattainable. As an athlete, I am very conscious of the small changes in my diet, sleep and stress that can affect my body; it is this idea that got me thinking about how the smallest of changes at home, can have an enormous impact on the environment, especially if everyone around us just does a little bit. My interest in plants at home started with my diet; however, the idea of saving money and having healthier plants grown at home began a trickle effect and turned into questions about how other plants, houseplants, can possibly help inside our home as well. I also maintained a log of recycling in our home of plastic bottles, cans, cardboard, etc.
Investigation- Plant air-quality research
Like all projects, I began mine with some research into the benefits of having more plants in our home, as well as in our diet. The first thing I came across was a famous article written by NASA back in 1989, https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19930073077/downloads/19930073077.pdf, in which it was discovered that having certain types of plants in your home can increase the air-quality, as well as having significant benefits to well-being (watering, taking care of them, etc) Since then, there has been some debate about how many plants were needed in order to have a positive effect; however, the results were positive just among the well-being of plants in the home, as well as the benefits of herbs in the diet. I chose to do my own study to find out. After sharing this information with friends and my parents, a lot of people started helping with ideas, and some got plants of their own!
Plants
There are hundreds of plants for the home that can have a positive effect on air-quality, so I did some reading and found a dozen plants for our great room that were affordable, were easy to take care, and had the best air-quality results. I chose Aloe Vera (2)- (*Also great for the skin!), Money Tree, Bromeliad, Spider plant (2), Dracaena Colorama, Snake plant, Croton, Pothas, Ivy, Calathea. After I got them home, I had to repot them into bigger pots, so they had room to grow. I chose 9” pots and use light water and a spritzer every few days, as needed. The plants were placed in medium sunlight. I do have to say, after about a week, the plants made me happy! They were beautiful to look at and they made me feel better. I bought an Air-quality monitor and started taking down the readings every day. I had to research the meanings of all the codes (PM2.5,PM10,AQI,CO2,CO,TVOC,HCHO,Humidity), and what their readings meant. After only one week, the numbers in our home actually got better. I knew the air-quality monitor worked because when my Dad was using a cleaner in the house with fumes, the alarm on the monitor went off and it read “Dangerous.”
Greenhouse/ Flower Beds
My next project idea came to me when I was outside repotting the plants. We had metal pieces from an old greenhouse in the backyard and I decided to put it back together. This took a long time, as my Dad and I had to reinforce the brackets with new screws. After this was completed, I used a razor knife to cut new polycarbonate panels for the greenhouse windows; these panels had UV protection on one side as not to burn the plants inside the greenhouse. We REUSED wood for the floors and rock underneath from our rock garden. Again, this took a long time, but I was VERY excited when I was able to complete it. A Greenhouse was easier than I thought to build and the benefits of having one are incredible. We can now start our vegetable seeds much earlier in the Spring which will yield more food. The excitement of planting so much food made me realize that we would need a place to plant them outside in order to increase their size and plants. I found wood in our garage and was able to cut it and square the with brackets to make 3’ x 6’ garden beds. I used a weed barrier on the bottom to prevent too many weeds from growing. It is so exciting… we now have a fully sustainable Garden area to grow and raise vegetables!
Air Quality Investigation
After 25 days of Air purification and introducing plants, the Air Quality in our home has increased. By research standards, the outcome is probably not considered “Significant,” however, I am excited to record that our Home Air quality is now Excellent! A very interesting finding was that the air-quality monitor went off when my mother would cook with a “certain” skillet… we are curious as to the fumes this skillet may have been producing and will investigate this further, however, we ran out of time before this study was due! The following are our home results for our 30-day air-quality:
u HCHO> .005 to .003- Better!
u TVOC> .009 to .007- Better!
u PM2.5> 29 to 24- Better!
u CO1 > 3 to 1- Better!
u AQI > 40 to 33- Better!
u PM10> 38 to 31- Better!
u CO2 > 403 to 403- Excellent!
I learned SO much doing this project for our home; but soon realized that my project reached so many other people and made changes in their homes, too. I was able to divide my spider plants and share them with a neighbor. After sharing my results with my parents, they shared this information with their friends. The air-quality monitor and air-purifier were definitely worth saving a little money for; an unexpected outcome was the sound of the air-purifier helping my dog sleep! I am planning to continue my daily recycling and reusing items at home. I will be looking forward to reseeding and replanting my garden every year, too. I am already looking into canning some of the vegetables, like the tomatoes for longer-lasting food. This project was a reminder that even the smallest of impacts matter; sustainability means we should all try to put back as much as we take away!
30-day Sustainability 2024, by Jonathan Pelzar
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