The Truth Behind Popular Houseplant Myths and Their Benefits
You have almost certainly seen the headlines: "If you have this plant in your house, then you have good luck!" or "...then you are breathing cleaner…
The Snake Plant and Cleaner Air
The claim is that a snake plant, or Sansevieria, purifies the air in your home. There is a kernel of truth here. NASA’s Clean Air Study did find that snake plants can remove trace amounts of certain indoor pollutants, such as formaldehyde and benzene.
The catch is that the study was run in small, sealed laboratory chambers, not ordinary rooms. To match the effect of a mechanical air filter, you would need an impractical number of plants, by some estimates more than ten per square foot. A single snake plant will not transform your indoor air. What it will do is add resilient, striking greenery with almost no maintenance, and simply having plants around has been shown to support mood and reduce stress. That is a real benefit, even without the superlatives.