YOUR AD HERE »

Ask Eartha: Are houseplants beneficial to the environment?

Annie Nikolaus
Ask Eartha
This week's Ask Eartha examines the environmental impacts and benefits of houseplants.
Getty Images

Dear Eartha, I love plants and have quite the collection at home. Does taking care of all these plants help curb my environmental impact? 

Houseplants are a great way to decorate your space and bring some natural elements inside. If you’re like me and your apartment is a thriving jungle of greenery, you might wonder if tending to your many plants does more than just brighten your home and your day. As it turns out, houseplants offer some great environmental benefits, and they also come with a few surprising drawbacks. Let’s dig in. 

The benefits 



It’s natural to assume that houseplants help fight climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide. And while they do take in cardon dioxide, their impact is minimal. A single houseplant absorbs only about 0.16 pounds of carbon each year, while the average American’s carbon footprint is 32,000 pounds annually. This means you won’t be able to cover your carbon footprint with houseplants alone. 

However, houseplants do offer other environmental perks. Perhaps the most significant is their ability to improve indoor air quality. A NASA study found that plants help reduce pollutants like volatile organic compounds and harmful gases. Pollutants like volatile organic compounds can cause adverse health effects like headaches, nervous system damage and in extreme cases can even lead to cancer. While you’d need a true jungle — about one plant per square foot — to fully purify your home’s air, even a few plants can make a difference against these harmful pollutants. 



Additionally, houseplants do a great job of regulating indoor temperature and increasing humidity in your home. They do this through a process called transpiration, during which they release water vapor through their leaves into the surrounding air. This can help cool your home in the summer and add much-needed humidity to Colorado’s dry mountain air. 

Finally, while not strictly environmental, houseplants have been found to boost mental health by reducing stress and anxiety and increasing focus. They also provide a sense of connection to nature, which is especially valuable for those who can’t get outside every day. 

The drawbacks 

While houseplants offer some great benefits, they can come with some environmental drawbacks as well. Mainly, your house plants come from somewhere. Many plants travel long distances before reaching your home, racking up “plant miles,” the number of miles a plant has to travel to get to you. This can be especially high for tropical or exotic species. These “plant miles” result in carbon emissions, meaning your plant can have a carbon footprint, too. Additionally, large-scale plant nurseries often rely on energy-intensive greenhouses that require significant heating and water, particularly in colder climates. 

Despite being natural in origin, houseplants are guilty of requiring lots of plastic. Often plants are sold in single-use plastic containers that can’t be recycled and end up in the landfill. And it’s not just the plants themselves — many are grown in peat, a nonrenewable resource that takes thousands of years to form. Harvesting peat for gardening depletes fragile ecosystems, making it an unsustainable growing medium. 

How to houseplant sustainably 

While the pros and cons of house plants are relatively minor in the grand scheme of a changing climate, there are a few steps you can take to make your indoor jungle more sustainable. 

  • Propagate and trade plants with your friends instead of buying new from the store 
  • Instead of peat-based soils and synthetic fertilizers, enrich your plants naturally with local alternatives like High Country Compost 
  • When it comes to pots, opt for durable, reusable planters over plastic ones to keep waste out of landfills 
  • If you do find yourself with plastic planters, seek out options to recycle the plastic. While planters aren’t recyclable at local recycling centers or in your curbside service, Breck Create’s Precious Plastic program can use them for their art courses 

While houseplants alone won’t solve climate change, these small, sustainable choices can help make your indoor jungle a little greener — both for you and the planet. 

Ask Eartha Steward is written by the staff at the High Country Conservation Center, a nonprofit dedicated to waste reduction and resource conservation. Submit questions to Eartha at info@highcountryconservation.org

Annie Nikolaus
High Country Conservation Center/Courtesy photo

Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

As a Summit Daily News reader, you make our work possible.

Summit Daily is embarking on a multiyear project to digitize its archives going back to 1989 and make them available to the public in partnership with the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. The full project is expected to cost about $165,000. All donations made in 2023 will go directly toward this project.

Every contribution, no matter the size, will make a difference.