Chlorine

Chlorine’s benefits fall into five major categories:

• disinfection
• pharmaceuticals and medical equipment
• public safety
• crop protection
• every day life

First, disinfection. Before chlorine, a drink of water could kill you. Fortunately, since the advent of water chlorination, these epidemic diseases, which once killed tens of thousands, have been virtually wiped out in the United States, Europe and other developed nations.

Hailed as one of history’s greatest public health advances, water made safe by chlorination has also contributed to a 50 percent-plus increase in life expectancy and a dramatic decline in infant mortality rates.

Just as water is essential to life, chlorine is essential to safe water. This fundamental fact is tragically illustrated every day by the more than 25,000 people around the world who die each day from diseases associated with dirty drinking water, according to the World Health Organization.

In addition, one only needs to look to the cholera epidemic in Peru that took thousands of lives in the late 1980s after the country stopped chlorinating its water out of concerns over exposures to Trihalomethanes (THMs). This tragedy clearly illustrates that as far as safe water is concerned, the real dangers the world faces without the benefits of chlorine chemistry far outweigh the hypothetical risks of chlorinated compounds.

Aside from its essential role in water purification, chlorine is also one of the most effective and economical germ-killers against a wide array of life-threatening infections, viruses and bacteria, such as HIV, salmonella, E. Coli, and campylobacter.

Simply put, nothing cleans like chlorine. Homes, hospitals, hotels, restaurants and other public places such as nursing homes, schools, day care centers, resorts, spas, and cruise ships are all made cleaner and safer thanks to chlorine.

Chlorine also is a cornerstone of modern medicine. Today, about 85 percent of all pharmaceuticals contain or are manufactured with chlorine. These drugs include vitamins and medicines that treat heart disease, cancer, AIDS, ulcers, arthritis, pneumonia, depression, diabetes, allergies and colds, ear infections, malaria, and meningitis to name a few. Almost one-third of central nervous system drugs contain chlorine, while 98 percent of gastrointestinal medications use chlorine.

Chlorine also makes possible a wide variety of medical equipment. An estimated 25 percent of all medical devices in hospitals contain or are made with chlorine. Among them are IV and blood bags, X-ray and mammography film, syringes, oxygen tents, diagnostic instruments, sterile tubing packaging, coolers for organ transplants, surgical sutures, and artificial blood vessels.

Chlorine helps improve human health in other ways too. About 96 percent of all crop protection chemicals use chlorine in the manufacturing process. Thanks to these chemicals, society can count on a wide selection of nutritious and low-cost grains and produce. It is estimated that chlorine-reliant crop protection chemicals contribute to a 23 – 40 percent increase in production yield. Clearly, without chlorine’s help in controlling pests, diseases and weeds, there would be far more food shortages and failed crops all over the world.

The products of chlorine chemistry not only save lives, they make the world a much safer place. Chlorine chemistry has helped make possible some of the most important public safety advances in recent years, such as bullet-resistant vests that have saved thousands of police officers lives, and the special plastic known as “bullet-resistant glass” that provides protection in security vehicles, police cars and bank teller windows. Chlorine also helps fire fighters “take the heat,” by contributing to the manufacture of fire-resistant clothing and helmets.

And though you might not have realized it, chlorine makes everyday life a lot safer. Seat belts and airbags, two of the most important devices in automobile safety, are both possible thanks to chlorine chemistry.

Chlorine also helps make our everyday lives a lot more enjoyable and productive. Used to make one of the world’s most widely used and versatile plastics — polyvinyl chloride (or PVC) — chlorine plays a role in everything from car upholstery to card tables, garden hoses to golf bags, rain coats to recreational equipment and wallpaper to window frames.

As a major factor in the technological advances that have revolutionized communications, chlorine chemistry contributes to the production of the microprocessors and wires in computers, computer disks, and the plastic housings for computers, keyboards and telephones.

Virtually every part of the home is touched by chlorine’s benefits. From the ground up, many are constructed and decorated with chlorine-related products such as vinyl siding, windows and plumbing pipes; nylon carpeting, house paint, and fiberglass insulation. Inside the home, chlorine contributes to everything from clean, disinfected tap water, to household cleaners and bleach, to food packaging and plastic wraps, to televisions.

Traveling away from home, chlorine is there nearly every step of the way, contributing to the construction of automobiles, aircraft and trains. Even space vehicles and rocket fuel depend on chlorine chemistry.

When you think about it, the many benefits of chlorine chemistry can be summed up in three words: Chlorine Saves Lives. And when you think a little more, it’s readily apparent that life simply would not be the same without chlorine.

But chlorine’s benefits do not just exist in the present; they will extend into the future, particularly where the environment and human health are concerned.

The pulp and paper industry’s switch to elemental chlorine-free (ECF) bleaching provides a clear example of how chlorine chemistry can be part of the answer to improving our environment, while maintaining economic growth. Through the use of chlorine dioxide, elemental chlorine-free bleaching represents the best of both worlds by virtually eliminating the presence of dioxin in mill waste water and pulp products, while still providing the highest quality recyclable white paper and saving precious forest resources.

Elemental chlorine-free bleaching also appears to offer significant environmental advantages over TCF. Specifically, recent evidence indicates that TCF pulp manufacture increases wood consumption by about 10 percent. This means that if pulp and paper mills were TCF, the annual increase in forest resources required would equal about 100 million mature trees. Furthermore, TCF reduces paper’s recyclability by damaging cellulose fibers.

Though society tends to quickly forget, chlorine chemistry over the years has provided other solutions that have allowed us to minimize or eliminate risks and improve the environment. For example, DDT, although now banned, helped rid malaria from much of the world decades ago. Today, two other products of chlorine chemistry — polyvinyl chloride plumbing pipes and house paints based on titanium dioxide — are helping to reduce the public’s exposure to lead.

In the future, chlorine chemistry will make possible other advancements in productivity, environmental protection and human health that will benefit the world community.

Already chlorine chemistry has proved Thomas Malthus wrong. Thanks to modern crop protection chemicals — the overwhelming majority of which are based on processes using chlorine — hardly anyone in the more affluent nations of the world has experienced malnutrition or starvation.