Kamal Meattle: How to Grow Fresh Air

Reflection by COOPER T.

Original TED page w/ speaker bio, links, comments, etc:

Kamal Meattle:  How to Grow Fresh Air

This idea is a great one to pursue. The uses for it may not be as needed in the U.S. but there are a multitude of other countries that need this kind of help. Health problems are a big deal in these workplaces and these plants are cutting down on many of the respiratory related ones. Kamal isn’t really trying to get these plants in every work location that could use it but he is defiantly throwing the idea out there. TED has provided this idea a base for growth and that is probably its main use.

Many of the people that have followed this video have brought up one main point, that is a whole lot of plants. I understand that the amount of plants Kamal says will be needed is high but keep this in mind, the number of plants is the amount needed to provide enough oxygen for a person to survive off of. That said you must realize, not all these plants are needed, half of them would drastically improve the health of workers and the quality of air. If the air is circulated within thew building the quality will constantly improve.

Homes, being smaller, would require even less foliage per person. Getting them in homes would improve the health of children and elderly and improve the quality of life in these poorer countries. On the topic of children these plants need to make their way into schools. If this happened the children would constantly be exposed to healthier air and would grow up with less health problems.

This idea wouldn’t be a bad thing for us to pick up on in the states. If every house got a few plants then we would be breathing purer air. As a matter of fact the more plants that made their way into cities would cut down on smog, and with more car companies resorting to low emission vehicles we could basically undo the damage that has been done to the environment.

Mr. Meattle has done amazing things in New Delhi and hopefully his idea will pick up and spread. He has a full bio that is easily found on TED with more info about what he has been working on.