How did the Environmental Protection Agency receive Dr. Wolverton’s findings?

Just before Wolverton’s retirement from NASA in 1990, in 1988, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) conducted a survey of air quality in public buildings and identified more than 900 VOCs in office buildings, nursing homes, hospitals and schools . Of these VOCs, many were found in concentrations known to pose serious acute and chronic health risks. These included such compounds as benzene, ethylbenzene, xylene, styrene, trichlorethyhlene, decane, formaldehyde, 1,1, I-trichloroethane, dichlorobenzene and ethyl toluene.

Solvents in glues, paints and varnishes commonly used in the production of carpets, drywall and pressed wood furniture, such as toluene and formaldehyde were omnipresent. Over 40 VOCs have been identified that come from modem appliances such as computers, monitors and televisions.

Source: NASA on phytoremediaton.

On the basis of this research, the EPA developed an approach to restoring air quality based primarily on mechanical ventilation. This approach was described in the EPA’s 1989 Report to Congress on Indoor Air Quality at this link.

Indoor Air Policy Forum

“In September 1987, EPA and the National Council for Clean Indoor Air (NCCIA) convened a conference designed to assist EPA in identifying and assessing appropriate options for the Federal government in preventing and abating indoor air pollution. . . [with] over 100 representatives from industry, consumer and health groups, State and Federal agencies, legislators and Congressional staff. . . (Report, page 4).

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There was wide agreement among participants at the policy forum that altering ventilation standards and practices should be central to the strategy for controlling and preventing indoor air pollution. Consideration of health should become at least equal, and perhaps paramount, to energy conservation in setting ventilation standards. Ventilation standards could become an effective means of controlling multiple pollutants simultaneously as well as cost effectively” ( Report, page 6).

Standing on its reliance on ventilation for improvement of air quality, in 1992, the Environmental Protection Agency provided valid criticism of the effectiveness of interior plants as air filters for interiors with adequate mechanical or natural ventilation. The valuable comments written by the EPA’s Indoor Air Division Branch Chief, John Girman, and a responsive paper by Indoor Air Division Director, Robert Axelrad, are seen here.

The major objection to using plants as botanical air filters appears to have been its conflict with ventilation systems, which exchange air at such a rate as to remove the air purified by plant filters.

A second objection was that so many plants are needed to purify air, the use of plants is impractical and unreliable.

The EPA critics seemed to foresee that the public would fail to implement the full filter technology, and would fail to provide the correct number of plants, fail to avoid expulsion of the purified air, and fail to provide the boosting power of the fan to the plant filter.

Then, in 1995, the EPA set forth Energy Star standards by which buildings could be rated for energy efficiency.

In 1997, B. C. Wolverton’s book, “How To Grow Fresh Air,” was published, as a solution for the problem of off-gassing from man-made materials brought into the tight living spaces promoted as being energy-efficient. The book immediately became a best seller, and has remained so on Amazon in categories related to lung and respiratory problems, and house plants

However, it appears the EPA’s criticism had merit, in that, despite the public’s interest in utilizing plants for air purification, the technology of using plants to an effective degree was not embraced with the same seriousness as plant selection. Most articles on the web which take notice of Wolverton’s work have focused on the plants and their capabilities, as do most reviews of Wolverton’s book on Amazon.

Click next page to see the technology of plant air filtering that has been largely ignored by the public.