Here is an MSNBC article sent to me by Trevr; (check out his blog link in the right-hand navigation), that states pool workers and swimmers are prone to more colds due to a mixture of chlorine, sweat, and urates. (Urates is a polite word for urine.) Makes sense, since mixing chlorine, sweat, and ammonia has to make for one heck of a caustic martini. Here is the story at MSNBC: [Link]But there is a solution! Take the acid and the chlorine out of water completely and replace the chemicals with an ozone purification system. Ozone works amazingly well and produces water completely free of bacteria and viruses of any kind. Thus, the water will be safer for pool workers, swimmers and the ozone layer.
The image above comes from the European Space Agency from a GOME measurements of chlorine activation over the Arctic circle. Chlorine is bad "mojo" for both the ozone layer and our air quality so why are we using it when there is a better solution that is cleaner, safer, and has been in use on an industrial scale for the past 50 years?
Another byproduct of ozonated water is that the water has a clarity to it that chlorine or other chemicals can't match. Here are some links explaining how it works. The first link is to an ozone pool product site, the next two are independent news articles, [Air Tree] - [Water Tech Online] - [Daily Yomiuri Online]
3 comments:
I hope the next study takes into account whether the pool is indoors or outdoors. I imagine it makes a big difference.
It definitely makes a difference -- I read an article in this month's Triathlete Magazine that (quite obviously) states that indoor pools, swimmers, and workers have it much worse.
That's not to say that outdoor pools are all hunky-dory-healthy-environmentally-green, though. I wonder how much it would cost to ozonate an existing chlorine pool, such as LMU... I can't seem to find any pricing information for commercial swimming (or even private) swimming pools. I imagine it would cost quite a bit...
I just copy pasted this as a short answer:
Ozone was first used in swimming pool water treatment in the 1950's. Since then its use has widely grown. There are over 30,000 swimming pools in Europe that are treated with ozone. The swimming pools for the Olympics have been treated with Ozone at least since 1984 for the Los Angeles Olympics. Most recently the Sydney Aquatic Center pool water was treated with Ozone.
Well known water facilities using ozone to treat their water:
* Disneyland and Disney World for all their water features
* Mirage Resort, Las Vegas
* San Diego Zoo, San Diego, CA for their marine and Aquatic habitats
* Vancouver Aquarium, Vancouver, Canada -for their Sea mammal support systems
The Beijing Pool uses it too. I will get specific pools and post.
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