Recently, it has been difficult to see clear skies, and stress due to fine dust is increasing each day. In particular, children and seniors are more vulnerable to fine dust and therefore, active protection has become necessary.

The air quality of Gangdong-gu, which had a lower level of fine dust than the environmental standard due to a large area of green space, has worsened since 2016 due to large-scale public works and housing renovation projects in Guri and Hanam city, and in the case of elementary schools, the level of fine dust in classrooms has become higher than the level of fine dust outdoors.

In order to resolve these environmental issues, the Environmental Department of the Gangdong Council for Sustainable Development selected 'reducing fine dust' as the top priority of Gangdong-gu in 2017, and has set 'growing air filtering plants' as an action plan. They have decided to supply air filtering plants to daycare centers, preschools, elementary schools and senior citizens' centers near renovation and construction areas within the district as examples, and the Clean Environment Division of the Gangdong-gu Office has secured a revised supplementary budget to carry out the project.

As a result, they have distributed a flowerpot for each classroom in the facilities, and created a separate air cleaning zone in preschools and elementary schools that have enough space to promulgate the effects of the air filtering plants on reducing fine dust, post informational ads and focus on flowerpot distribution.

According to data of the Rural Development Administration, the results of testing the effects of air filtering plants on removing ultra-fine dust show over 60% reduction of fine dust. Fine dust that is stuck on the wax of leaves due to transpiration and the disappearance of fine dust by being absorbed into the stoma on the back side of the leaves have been verified through electron microscopes.

A Gangdong-gu official said, "In order to respond to the fine dust issue, we are not only producing promotional material, but also making numerous efforts including holding resident educational programs and investigations on projects that scatter dust. In particular, we have sought to supply indoor air filtering plants that have direct fine dust reducing effects in order to protect the health of vulnerable groups and will continue to make various efforts to reduce fine dust in the future."

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