Chlorine: Disinfectant or Deadly?

CEBU, Philippines - Because chlorine has been used as a cheap water disinfectant for more than a century, many of us could not care less if the water we drink, shower or swim in pools is deadly. Either because we didn’t know, when told about it ignore, or when made to understand refuse to accept it, but the ill effects of chlorinated water is real.

Since the late 19th century, chlorine has been added to municipal water distribution systems as a disinfectant. But while it kills over 99 percent of the bacteria, it is also a deadly poison that can kill us and the bacteria. Every second, every minute, everyday, 24/7 chlorine is part of our existence from which we drink, cook with, wash our clothes and bathe with and almost literally, have our being. Chlorine is used to disinfect swimming pools, to whiten paper products such as bond paper, tissue paper or toilet paper, as bleaching agents and other disinfectant products such as household bleach and cleaners.

The problem with chlorine is that it is horribly carcinogenic that assaults the skin, hair, respiratory systems, kidneys and other organs of the body and has also been found to cause birth defects and still births. A study made by the Asthma Society of Ireland concluded that the increasing exposure of children to chlorination products in swimming pools is an important cause to the rising incidence of childhood asthma and other allergies.

We tend to ask what of chlorine makes it so scary and if scary why has its continued use been allowed? If you think this is just an old song, why should we continue to talk about it? Are there options to stop the use of chlorine?

Not your regular toxin.

As a chemical, chlorine does not occur naturally in the environment. Rather it is a manufactured substance produced through an industrial process by using electric current on salt water producing chlorine and caustic soda. While chlorine is a cheap water sanitizer, it contains chemicals that do not easily break down, contaminating pipes and then finally the human body whether externally like in showers and swimming pools or internally like drinking it.

Primarily it is the dioxin in chlorine that makes it deadly. Dioxin as a chemical byproduct of chlorine is believed to be the single most carcinogenic chemical known to science. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found dioxin to be 300,000 times more potent as a carcinogen than DDT, a colorless, odorless and highly toxic water insoluble insecticide.

The other thing is, water distribution pipelines are enveloped with biofilm – bacterial communities that can appear almost anywhere fouling machinery, clogging pipes and contributing to many forms of human disease. Chlorine does not remove the biofilm.

Normally the human body is good at getting rid of toxins but dioxins are not the kind of toxic substances that the human body can get rid of. What happens is that continued exposure to dioxins in chlorinated water even at very low levels accumulates the toxins in the human body and hence cause birth defects, cancer, reproductive disorders such as decreased fertility and reproductive dysfunction in men and women and immune system breakdown.

Studies show that 40 to 70 percent of dioxin in bleached coffee filters can leach or percolate into your coffee and dioxin found in paper milk cartons can leach into your milk. Chlorine in showers or when used in the manufacture of disposable diapers, paper towels and bathroom tissue can readily be absorbed through the skin. Damage to the skin owing to chlorine includes patchy dryness, itchiness, acne, irritation and an imbalance of natural, healthy bacteria on the skin. Chlorine can cause wrinkles, and dry, botchy skin that often affects the face, genital areas, back and abdomen.

The Great Switch.

If chlorine is so carcinogenic and deadly what then are the alternatives? The product is called GreenOxide or chlorine dioxide. In a talk with The Freeman, Gregor J.JH. Jansen, chief executive officer of GreenTech Asia said that his product called GreenOxide provides a radical solution to control or stop microbial contamination in water services, bottled drinking water, potable supplies, cooling water, waste water and effluent water recycling. GreenOxide can remove biofilm and prevent re-growth. GreenOxide does away with the unbreakable dioxins in chlorinated water because GreenOxide is pure.

We don’t have to drink our own poison. It’s time we use GreenOxide in our water systems before we get flushed away by complacency. If it’s any old song, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. Let’s start by preventing an ounce of chlorinated water in our system.