Houseplants That Actually Clean Your Air (And Ones That Don't)
Short answer: none of them, really — not enough to matter in an actual room. Here's where that famous claim came from, and why it doesn't hold up at home.
This post contains Amazon affiliate links. Green Is Easy may earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you.
Where the myth came from
In 1989, NASA tested houseplants inside sealed glass chambers smaller than a cubic meter, with no airflow, to see if they could remove toxic compounds for potential use on space stations. Within that sealed box, plants removed a real, measurable share of pollutants. That single study is the entire origin of "peace lilies clean your air" and every list like it since.
Why it doesn't hold up in a real room
A 2019 Drexel University analysis, led by environmental engineer Michael Waring, reviewed 196 experiments across 12 published studies and reached a clear conclusion: houseplants don't clean indoor air fast enough to matter once you account for normal ventilation.
What It Would Actually Take
Source: Cummings & Waring, Drexel University (2019), published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology.
The tell: even the International Space Station — the exact use case NASA's study was aimed at — doesn't rely on plants for air quality. It uses mechanical filtration, partly because the ISS actually gets far more air changes per hour than a typical home.
What houseplants are actually good for
None of this means houseplants are pointless — the air-purifying claim just isn't the real reason to have them.
Want low-maintenance plants anyway?
Great houseplants for beginners — for the mood boost, not the air purification myth.
Shop Easy-Care HouseplantsGood enough, not perfect
Keep your plants — just keep them for the right reasons. If indoor air quality is a real concern, a proper air purifier or better ventilation does the job plants simply can't.