Fact Check: Does Nasa recommends Snake Plant at home for good oxygen?

A post from March 27 on X (formerly known as Twitter) displays about snake plants. The text reveals that, according to NASA's Clean Air Study, the Snake Plant is such an effective producer of oxygen, that it would allow survival in a sealed room with no airflow if one had just 6-8 of these plants present. The article goes on to read, "NASA recommends 15 to 18 medium-to-large size plants for a 1,800 square-foot home for optimum air quality."

The post gained more than 120 reposts. People have shared similar versions of the claim on Instagram. The post referenced a NASA study which didn't examine the oxygen production of snake plants, but rather studied the air-purifying capabilities of several houseplants, including the snake plant. Experts state that it would be physically impossible for snake plants to produce enough oxygen to sustain human life in such conditions.

Fact Check

The spokesperson confirmed that the agency did not claim the statement to be false nor offered such recommendations. The distortion of the 1989 NASA report that focused whether indoor plants can clean the air, not sustain human life, may be the claim. A plant biochemistry expert further stated that six to eight snake plants, as claimed, wouldn't produce the level of oxygen a human requires in a day.

On X, a resurfaced falsehood persisted as users shared a photo and video suggesting that the federal agency found a few of the popular house plants would suffice to save a human trapped inside without airflow.

The text reads that NASA's Clean Air Study reports the Snake Plant's effectiveness in producing oxygen. It says that a person could survive in a sealed room with no airflow (yikes!) if they had 6-8 plants. The text also mentions that NASA suggests 15 to 18 medium-to-large size plants for a 1,800 square-foot home to achieve optimum air quality."

NASA hasn't made these claims or recommendations. In 1989, a small team at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, brought out a study titled "Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Abatement." This report highlighted how a dozen common houseplants could remove a variety of household toxins, like formaldehyde, from sealed chambers. The research focused on sealed spaces with restricted airflow, not on typical residential or commercial spaces. The study's findings have often been misunderstood or misused since its publication. The conclusions made in this post are not drawn from the study.

A 2019 study from the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, a peer-reviewed academic publication focusing on environmental impact, discovered that potted plants do not enhance air quality. The study indicated that a non-sealed room required anywhere between 10 and 1,000 potted plants for an equivalent exchange of outdoor and indoor air.

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