Lahoris turns to plants, air purifiers to seek relief from dense smog

To tackle the annual smog crisis, residents of Lahore have taken matters into their own hands by planting greenery and installing air purifiers in an effort to protect their homes from the dense smog.

“An unusual surge has been recorded in the sale of plants in the recent month,” Independent Urdu quoted a plant seller, who believes that there is a natural air cleaning filter in the plants which purifies the hazardous air.

The high demand for air purifiers and plants hiked prices, currently “these are being sold between Rs7000 and Rs70,000," as prices were fixed as per their size, and most people were using them in offices and rooms.

The country’s culture hub has been holding the top spot on the real-time list of most polluted cities of the world since the beginning of winter, with AQI reading of hazardous air reaching 1900 near the Pakistan-India border on Sunday. 

Environment experts believe that the air becomes more dangerous if the AQI reading touches 300. However, in Lahore’s case, it paralyses life.

Its severe impacts on health also triggered breathing problems, eye infections, and Pink eye diseases. 

“I am buying this air purifier to protect my family’s health," he said, adding, "Now we are having to pay for the clean air,” said a customer, buying the purifying plants. 

Apart from this, people in Lahore are buying a variety of plants, hoping to increase indoor greenery to help combat pollution.

“By the way, there are no specific plants to prevent smog, but to keep the climate clean in the rooms, other plants, including snake plant, harga palm and others, are used to clean the climate,” said a nursery owner.

However, environmental experts believe that sowing plants or installing air purifier plants in the rooms and turning off the fans were the solutions to avoid dangerous air. 

They also urged the government to implement an effective long-term strategy to address the worsening air quality, warning of increasingly severe impacts if action isn’t taken soon.