Comments on: Plant power to fight toxic tech

Plants could clean the air of toxic chemicals from living rooms and offices and, perhaps, power plants.

[helroth]

You can't cut formaldehyde (or any other) levels by 600 per cent. Mathematically Impossible.

[timber2005]

I believe it's similar in a sense of saying "reduced by 6 times"... 100% being half, 200% being two-thirds, 400% being a quarter (of original value)... its exponential decay.

Would be much less fancy to say "reduced to 1/6th of original amount". (I'd prefer 1/6th though)

[atmx2000]

Nonsense timber2005. When you use percentages, you are talk about adding or subtracting the percentage from the original amount. An increase of 30% means the new value is 130% of the original. A decrease of 30% is 70% of the original. A decrease of 100% is 0.

[elsa.wenzel]

Thanks, helroth and atmx2000. We've changed the post to reflect a reduction by one-sixth in formaldehyde levels, from .18 to .03 parts per million.