Milton Keynes man launches clean air revolution - with Spider Plants

The larger than life houseplant hospital has made an outlandish bid to share millions of the spider plants with the world.

Already the centre, which calls itself SPRC for short, has shared its specimens all over Milton Keynes and in other areas including London, Cambridge, Wolverhampton and even across the Scottish border in Dundee.

And its mission is not just pure madness or a passion for the fast-growing plants. For it's been proven that he spider plant belongs to an exclusive group called 'air purifying plants' that can strip harmful toxins such as formaldehyde and xylene from the atmosphere and replace them with fresh, breathable oxygen.

But studies indicate that it would take anywhere between 15 and 70 spider plants in a home to nullify the average household pollution output, said the SPRC spokesman, who calls himself Bill Botanica.

"Our mission is and always will be to spread as many spider plants throughout the UK as possible, to help fight the onslaught of pollution," he said.

“We currently have two functioning rescue centres in our hometown of Milton Keynes, where spider plants can be cared for and adopted by our growing community. We’re now regularly getting out to local events near to us, to spread the word to the general public, getting more people involved in our mission.”

Bill became a spider plant devotee after he was given his first specimen as a housewarming present by his housemate. He called the plants Mikey and later 'Mama G' as it began to give offspring.

He decided to launch Instagram page to document the numerous offspring.

"Little did I know that I would be throwing open the doors of a houseplant hospital, the likes of which have never been seen," he said.

SPRC was set up as a community organisation and now has a thriving social media community across Instagram and Facebook.

"We launched our monthly newsletter 'The Spider Plant Diaries' in early 2020 and followed up by launching our official website spiderplantrescuecentre.com not long after," said Bill.

"We partnered up with Square, Redbubble, Streetshirts and a whole host of other businesses to launch our very own e-commerce platform, so people can purchase spider plants from us wherever they are in the UK.

"We even launched our own branded range of plant accessories, homewares and travel essentials too, so that we can provide more quality items to our rapidly growing community."

During lockdown they have organised Spider Plant Adoption Drive Through events . They next one is on Sunday August 2 between 12 noon and 6pm at their premises in Hainault Avenue on Giffard Park.

Bill, who calls himself a Spiderplantologist (a word he admits he made up), has also launched a map on the SPRC website so people can track when the pollution-busting plants have gone to in the UK.

He said: “We as humans now present a massive problem for our environment. Amongst one of the biggest problems we present is pollution – whether that is caused by food waste, ground, sea and air contamination etc. We are avid producers and consumers, laying quite a bit of burden on the planet to keep up.

"It seems to be a natural occurrence. When you produce, you pollute. I believe that a problem so natural requires a natural solution – that’s where the clean air revolution comes into play.

“The amount of spider plants the average home would require to fully purify their air is out for debate, with NASA suggesting anywhere between 15 and 18 but some other studies stretching as far as 70 plants... If you take every home in the UK combined, that’s 2.3 billion spider plants.”

The SPRC website has an online shop selling everything from spider plant starter kits for £10 to tee shirts, mugs and spider plant journals.

During the coronavirus pandemic they have even provided SPRC-branded face masks, giving a portion of the profits to Heart to Heart International.

You can find the website here .