Kamal Meattle, in New Delhi, India, grows 400 plants in his office building’s greenhouse to help clean its indoor air.
On the roof of an office building in India’s capital, the world’s smoggest city, Kamal Meattle has a special way of cleaning the air: a greenhouse with 400 common plants. Meattle has 800 other plants spread throughout its lower six floors, greening each room and hallway. Their job: remove harmful things from the outdoor air.
Meattle uses rainwater to water the trees so that they can grow faster and take in more pollutants. He’s asking India’s new government to require rainwater farming and to paint roofs, and buses, white. And he’s pushing to build one of the world’s largest parks, complete with greenhouses.
As Meattle tells it, he really had no choice but to try something new. “My doctors told me to leave India in 1992,” he says, mentioning his breathing problem because of the city’s air pollution. He decided to stay, trying instead to solve a society-wide problem that’s become increasingly serious.
“Delhi’s unfit for living between October and March,” Meattle says, noting how often its air pollution becomes “very unhealthy” or even “dangerous”. In fact, New Delhi’s smog is now nearly three times worse than Beijing’s. The WHO found that the city had the world’s dirtiest air, and the cities from second to fourth are also in India. India’s indoor air pollution is even worse. The WHO says it’s India’s second biggest killer, after high blood pressure, and results in 1.3 million deaths every year.
But can plants really clean the air?
NASA published several studies in the 1980s showing indoor plants could clean the air. It later tested the value of the plants to both clean air and recycle waste in building known as the BioHome. Other studies have also suggested that plants could help clean indoor air.
Wolverton, a NASA researcher, has been working in Japan, where plants have been used to make 50 to 60 “ecological gardens(生态花园)” in hospitals. He says there’s growing interest in South Korea and China.
Not everyone believes that. “I certainly would not count on plants to clean indoor air…” To get them to work, you’d need too many plants, ” says John Girman. He says a 1,500-square-foot house would need 680 plants and the result would be “an indoor forest”.
“We have an air treatment plant,” Meattle says of his idea. The result, he adds, is fewer worker sick days, great productivity, and air as clean as that in Davos, Switzerland.
1. What did Meattle do after the doctors advised him to leave India?
A. He went abroad between October and March.
B. He raised money for growing pants in his office.
C. He tried to solve the indoor air pollution problem.
D. He called on people to care about the environment problem.
2. According to the passage, the BioHome might be .
A. a place to test the plants’ role in cleaning the indoor air
B. a place to do experiments on the size of indoor forest
C. a project about how plants can grow well
D. a project about what plants are fit for offices
3.From the passage we know Meattle is .
A.honest and caring B.emotional and wise
C.experienced and brave D.creative and reponsible
4.The passage is mainly about .
A.a new practice of cleaning indoor air
B.plants to reduce indoor air pollution
C.the serious air polution problem
D.Meattle’s fight against polluted indoor air