Grow Your Own Air

Have a look at this presentation

How to Grow Your Own Fresh Air

So, according to Meattle's study, we apparently each need about 4 good-sized Areca Palms and 6-8 big 'Mother-in-Law's' tongue plants to keep soaking up what we breathe out and pumping oxygen back into the air. And that's just for breathing. This presentation really brought it home to me how something we take so much for granted - the air we breathe - is being constantly generated by the plants around us.

I was reminded of a phrase written by Patrick Geddes over a hundred years ago (1854-1932) which I just looked up to quote in full here.

'This is a green world, with animals comparatively few and small, and all dependent on leaves. By leaves we live. Some people have the strange idea that they live by money. They think energy is generated by the circulation of coins. Whereas the world is mainly a vast leaf colony, growing on and forming a leafy soil, not a mere mineral mass; and we live not by the jingling of our coins, but by the fullness of our harvests'