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Comment by Timucin | Hacker News Reader

I may have missed but it seems nothing discussed for the amount o plants in the comments.

Is having that many plants around your bed safe? Can they release enough CO2 to effect your sleep quality or is it a myth I remember from my childhood?

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Is suspect you can search for this, but here's a quick shot - how much living material is inside them? Let's say all the plants weight the same as one human. And they don't need to keep warm. So most likely they're not respirating more than one extra human. And I don't think having three people in a bed is unsafe.

I just had a chance to do a bit research and read about the facts and I believe you're right.

It seems even a small pet, like a hamster, could produce more CO2 than a home full of trees/plants during the night.

Release co2, to the air? Wouldn’t we expect them to sequester co2 and release oxygen? Or is my mental model of plants maybe to simplistic?

They release oxygen during photosynthesis, which requires sunlight. Apart from it, there is respiration process that is going all the time that uses O2 and produces CO2 and energy for functioning. Under the sunlight, the production of O2 is significantly higher then the consumption.

The amount of produced CO2 is AFAIR fairy small to introduce any problems for people sleeping in a room.

It's reversed at night (absence of light).

It depends, [CAM succulents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crassulacean_acid_metabolism) do their gas exchange at night, and then close their stomata and do the photosynthesis during the day. It's a dry-climate adaptation, to lose less water in the process of exchanging the previous day's O2 for fresh CO2.

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