Green Thought Thursdays: House Plants

Once a week, I am offering up a tip or action or idea that we can all engage with to work towards living in ways that allow for more health and wellbeing for all aspects of the planet. Last week we talked about the 30-wears rule.

This week the green thought is about house plants.

Air pollution is a big problem that impacts the health of just about every living creature on earth, including humans. Car exhaust, as just one example, includes soot, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds (a previous Green Thought Thursday touched on VOCs), and small amounts of heavy metals. These are all unhealthy for most living organisms to absorb. In 2018, the World Health Organization found that nearly 91% of the human population of the world lives in areas where the level of airborne pollutants is above healthy levels (Health Effects Institute 2018).

Indoor plants can be grown at home or in the office such as around these cubicles. Photo Credit: Wiki Nursery Live

One partial solution is to grow house plants. Adding plants to your indoor spaces can have lots of great benefits. Different species of plant can absorb certain pollutants in the air and degrade or modify them to make them less toxic. Two specific examples are palms that filter out acetone, xylene, and toluene; and Philodendrons that remove formaldehyde. Indoor plants can also increase humidity which as health benefits such as reducing dry skin, reducing eye irritation, improving throat and airway health, and many more. There are also mental health benefits to being surrounded by living plants. Research has shown that stress and depression rates are lower among people who work and live with plants in their common spaces than in people with no living organisms in close proximity. Growing indoor plants is awesome!

What do you think of these thoughts and the solution? Is this a step you will take? Do you have any other solution ideas?

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Green Thought Thursdays: Low-VOC Paints

Once a week, I am offering up a tip or action or idea that we can all engage with to work towards living in ways that allow for more health and wellbeing for all aspects of the planet. Last week we talked about carpooling.

This week the green thought is about low-VOC paints.

Painting is a ton of fun and can really change the feel of a room, but more happens when any of us paint something than a change in color. As paint dries, scintillating as that is to watch, it releases a whole suite of different chemicals into the air. That smell of fresh paint is a result of those chemicals drifting around in the air. These chemicals are all grouped under the label Volatile Organic Compounds or VOCs. The problem with VOCs is that they contribute to fine particulate pollution in the air, and also cause health impacts in humans (and likely in other animals as well) including eye irritation, headaches, nose and throat irritation, nausea, loss of coordination, kidney damage, and central nervous system issues among others.

Some cans of low-VOC paint of various colors. Photo: Stelzer Painting

One solution is to buy and use low-VOC, or zero-VOC, paints. Some paints are made with chemicals and materials such that they release relatively low levels of VOCs. This means that the paints are likely to have fewer impacts on the health of us humans, and also have less of a negative impact on the environment.

What do you think of these thoughts and the solution? Is this a step you will take? Do you have any other solution ideas?

Thank you for visiting my blog! Please check back next week for another Green Thought Thursday!

If you are interested in other ways to connect with me, here are a few options:

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Green Thought Thursdays: Carpooling

Once a week, I am offering up a tip or action or idea that we can all engage with to work towards living in ways that allow for more health and wellbeing for all aspects of the planet. Last week we talked about spaying/neutering our pets.

This week the green thought is about carpooling.

Driving causes a lot of problems. Some of these problems arise directly from cars. Smog, chemical air pollution, burning fossil fuels, noise pollution, time spent in traffic, money spent buying gas, and money spent buying cars are just a few! Other problems are indirectly associated with cars. Repairs to roads as a result of high traffic, creating materials to build all the cars needed, the fossil fuel used in transporting cars to market, and the fossil fuels used in transporting fossil fuels to gas stations are just a few of these.

Carpooling individuals. Photo: King County.

One partial solution is to carpool. Carpooling is when multiple people share a ride in the same car. This means fewer cars on the road which would help alleviate the direct an indirect issues listed above. It also opens some doors to people to do not, or cannot, drive by providing them is an way to reach places of employment that might be impossible without a car. There are drawbacks such as extra coordination of pickups and dropoffs and also the need to find multiple people who all live close to one another and also work close to one another. However, the benefits are huge and certainly outweigh these costs.

What do you think of these thoughts and the solution? Is this a step you will take? Do you have any other solution ideas?

Thank you for visiting my blog! Please check back next week for another Green Thought Thursday!

If you are interested in other ways to connect with me, here are a few options:

Follow this blog!

View and subscribe to my YouTube channel – A Birding Naturalist

Follow me on Instagram – abirdingnaturalist

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