Big leafy trees are literally oxygen-pumping factories. We need to start planting these in great numbers ASAP instead of wasting time and money on futile air purifiers

◊ By Dr Supriya Mahajan Sardana, MD

Sometimes the simplest facts are the most difficult to grasp. The one presently staring us in the face, is the extreme importance of Big Leafy Trees (BLTs).

In Ladakh, the significance of oxygen hits you when you experience the lack of it. The high-altitude region has LESS TREES and, therefore, LESS OXYGEN. It has all kinds of oxygen cylinders available for easy breathing and even has oxygen bars!

In Delhi, too, we’re not breathing well and there is the pitiably dismal SMOG that we collectively choke on every winter. But unlike the Ladakhis, we are geographically well situated to grow lots of trees around us. Then why do we choose to buy expensive and low-efficacy air purifiers and indoor plants instead?

Rather than preserving and planting more efficient, low maintenance, inexpensive, huge oxygen factories called TREES, we continue to massacre them year after year.

For 15 years, I have lived in this area (Sec 28, Noida) and felt grateful to walk down leafy lanes dotted with huge Jamun, Arjun, Neem, Peepal, Pilkhan, Gulmohar, Senna and Sheesham trees. Owing to BLTs, even on the worst smog days we were able to take a stroll outside without feeling suffocated. Have you ever wondered where this PURE AIR, which is now available at a premium, comes from? Which wonder machines lap up copious amounts of carbon dioxide, monoxide generated by our massive fossil fuel combustion? Yes! It is the BLTs, with their huge leafy canopies— not manicured lawn grass or potted ornamentals—which generate tonnes of oxygen, counteracting air pollution.

Air purifying potted plants such as Sansevieria, Chlorophytum, Money Plants and Palms are the new rage. For long, I have maintained them both in and around my home and shared them with many people. They may be able to absorb a few toxic gases and fumes (only when kept in large numbers and of significant height or density and to be wiped clean indoors frequently, mind you!) but they produce only a miniscule quantity of oxygen compared to BLTs, our REAL AIR PURIFIERS.

Rather than preserving and planting more such efficient, low maintenance, inexpensive, huge oxygen factories called TREES, we’re gradually destroying them. The towering canopied trees of our ward were butchered post monsoon by the electricity department, owing to a “cables hazard”. What little remained was then chopped off by the Resident Welfare Association, apparently, with the approval of many residents and ward directors because they shed leaves, which is unacceptable to certain residents and the mali!

How else will the tree renew itself and produce fresh leaves, which will then become new oxygen factories for us? After having reduced the beautiful canopies of these trees to a scant few branches on the top, numerous Champa trees were planted in our parks. This author has nothing personal against Champa/Frangipani but it is an ornamental tree, which has no need-of-the-hour oxygen-generating virtues as the BLTs.

Rather than wait for a change in governmental policies on crop burning, vehicular pollution, etc, we should take to proliferating trees, as this is the single most doable and practical step towards a cleaner and safer future for all of us.

God forbid, we arrive at a situation where all of us have to lug around our own oxygen cylinders and pray that the contractor doesn’t shut down its supply as in the Gorakhpur hospital scandal*. 

Perhaps then we’ll miss the leafy Neem and the beautiful Peepal in the park!

*In August 2017, 30 children died at the Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur after its liquid oxygen supplier, Pushpa Sales, allegedly cut off oxygen supply in response to accumulated dues.

       ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author is a dermatologist in Delhi NCR and she is a proponent of natural living.