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How to grow fresh air | Kamal Meattle

TED · 510.8K views · 2009-03-21 · 4:04

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Overview

Researcher Kamal Meattle describes how an arrangement of three common houseplants placed in specific spots can measurably clean the air in a home or office. It is a short TED talk based on his work in a plant-filled building.

On Hacker News

HN commenters cite it in threads about indoor air quality, CO2 and houseplants as a cheap, low-tech approach.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2016–2026

Topics

Environment, agriculture & food systemsIdeas & learning (other)
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houseplantsair qualityted talkindoor plantsco2

What people said

internaut · 2016-09 · Recommendation

From this thread "How Trees Calm Us Down": [LINK] Japanese researcher describes (with control group) the interesting affects of walking in a forest. [LINK] Indian researcher describes side affects of indoor plants on health esp. air quality. [VIDEO] I'm incorporating some of these concepts into my tiny house design e.g. a (truly ingenious design using mirrors!) terrarium and an hinoki ofuro, together with natural daylighting. A poster called mantesso offered up this interesting paper: Here's the original study from NASA, Interior Landscape plants for indoor air pollution abatement : [LINK]

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internaut · 2016-07 · Recommendation

If you want to know more you may be interested in these: Japanese researcher describes (with control group) the interesting affects of walking in a forest. [LINK] Indian researcher describes side affects of indoor plants on health esp. air quality. [VIDEO] I'm incorporating some of these concepts into my tiny house design e.g. a terrarium and an hinoki ofuro, together with natural daylighting.

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patrickk · 2016-07 · Recommendation

When I flew into Heathrow last year, I was amazed by how visible the pollution was- over central London, there were no clouds (there were clouds around the outskirts) but this vague, blue haze was quite noticeable. Although compared to Shanghai, London is really clean, if you live in Shanghai you keep your windows permanently shut and run an air purifier 24/7: [LINK] > I'd recommend anyone living in a city to invest in a good air purifier from BlueAir or IQAir (if you can afford it). Another, more environmentally friendly option: [VIDEO] Also basil plants are a natural mosquito repellent, might not be an issue in the UK though.

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Sources

Video by TED, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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