This plant can grow in many conditions and suffers from few problems, other than brown tips. It gets its name from its spider-like plants, or #spiderettes, which dangle down from the mother plant like spiders on a web.
This plant was a part of NASA’s Clean Air Study. It is most effective in removing carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, Xylene, and toluene. It is better than many indoor plants that participated in that experiment. This National Wildlife Federation article claims that spider plant removes more than 95 percent of toxic agents from the air.
Carbon monoxide is odorless, colorless, and tasteless gas that does not cause any irritation. It is produced by incomplete combustion of carbonaceous fuels such as wood, petrol, coal, natural gas, and kerosene. In urban areas, the primary source of this pollutant is exhaust from motor vehicles. Gas stoves, gas refrigerator, tobacco smoke, wood burning stoves, fireplaces, and other fossil fuel burners raise carbon monoxide level indoors.
Vital organs in our body such as the brain, nervous tissues, and the heart need oxygen to work properly. As the level of carbon monoxide level rises, oxygen in the hemoglobin reduces simultaneously. It increases the chance of CO poisoning in people suffering from chronic heart disease, anemia, or respiratory problems. Lack of coordination, fatigue and concentration problem are also associated with raised CO levels. Spider plant is effective in reducing indoor carbon monoxide level, which helps in decreasing fatigue, headaches, colds, sore throats, and flu-like symptoms caused by CO exposure.
WHO guidelines for indoor air quality, includes formaldehyde in its list of toxic pollutants. The significant health risk of formaldehyde is that it poses a carcinogenic risk and causes nose and throat cancer, claim by American Cancer Society and NIH. It can also irritate eyes, nose, throat and some other severe breathing problems and allergies. This colorless, combustible, strong-smelling substance is monetarily utilized for making building items. Exposure of formaldehyde in a indoor space is mainly due to Urea-formaldehyde resin that is used for making adhesives of particle board wood. Brand-new flooring, furnishings, particleboard, paneling, cabinet, floor coverings, and mattresses also raise the danger of formaldehyde exposures. Some different sources of formaldehyde emissions are cooking, smoking, painting, beautifying agents, fuel combustion from traffic, etc.
When exposed to formaldehyde for 24 hours, spider plant reduced the formaldehyde levels by approximately 88 percent.
The spider plant absorbs water through its roots and then circulates the moisture through stems and leaves. Once the water reaches the leaves, it evaporates into the air and increases the humidity. The increased humidity decreases the risk of several airborne diseases, such as cold, cough, sore throat and flu-like symptoms. Growing a spider plants at home or office helps in keeping these diseases away and helps increase the concentration and productivity.
Spider plants are also useful in absorbing #EMF radiation from your electronic devices