Looking for chlorine alternatives . . .

[ChristinaLucia]

I'm new here too and trying to learn about chlorine alternatives.

[PoolDoc]

Hi Christina;

I gotta grin about your post

How in the world did you end up here? We're sort of the king of the "use chlorine, not all those bogus, faux 'green', worthless products"!

Usually, when we get questions like yours, I try to explain why all the alternatives are bogus, and how the deceptive marketing of the "let's cash in on the dumb consumers who want to go all green" greedster crowd bamboozles gullible MSM reporters, and rips off naive consumers. But we're getting hammered right now, with people we can help -- I'm not sure why, but internet traffic here has gone through the roof.

Plus, I've found that most of the folks who want "chlorine alternatives" don't really want to hear anything different -- so it wastes their time and mine to try to explain all that.

Here are a couple of things you might find interesting:

1. We have a photo gallery of pools that use natural swamp processes to maintain fairly clear pools. I'd actually love one of those, since I much prefer swimming in streams and the ocean, to pools. A lot of those pools are absolutely gorgeous, and the thread has links to companies selling those designs and gear.

2. A lot of people think of ozone as a "chlorine alternative" -- I'm not sure why; it's more toxic than chlorine -- but anyhow Del Ozone is considerably less bogus than most of the companies selling ozone for pools.

3. Also, PHMB based products have lost market share over the past decade, but are still available. Baquacil was the originator of that system, which is STILL the only true (mostly complete) chlorine alternative pool sanitation system.

4. I can't bring myself to link to any of the UV or copper ('mineral') systems that are promoted as alternative systems: those product lines must have hired all the salesmen from Rats Mouth, Florida (Boca Raton), when all the sleazy tele-marketing companies got shut down in the wake of the Federal Do-Not-Call list.

Good luck!

[ChristinaLucia]

Thanks Ben. I mostly am interested in using the least toxic method of pool sanitation. The woman whose house I bought used Pristine Blue. I am not an expert but using copper didn't strike me as less toxic so I am just trying to research and see what the experts think about what to use. Thanks for taking the time to respond to me!

[PoolDoc]

Nope.

The least toxic method is . . . SURPRISE . . . CHLORINE!

But, various environmental groups, with several types of hidden agenda at play, have bamboozled scientifically ignorant MSM reporters into knee-jerk "Chlorine is BAD!" writing. Like most such distortions, there is some truth behind it. In particular using chlorine to treat heavily used indoor pools is problematic, and I'm aware of the problems at a highly personal level: my older son was an elite distance swimmer in middle and high school, but also suffered from severe allergies and chronic asthma.

However, almost all of those problem are issues for INDOOR pools, not outdoor pools with unrestricted air circulation, and full exposure to solar UV.

I often joke about the fact that pools are filled with the highly toxic chemical, dihydrogen oxide, and that more people are killed each year by over-exposure to that single chemical, than by over-exposure to every other chemical combined. Of course, dihydrogen oxide is just water, but it is quite true that more people drown than are killed by other chemicals combined.

Ironically -- and I was finally able to run this down a couple of years ago -- a woman died some years ago, after accidentally drinking about a 1/2 cup of bleach she'd set down next to her orange juice. But, what killed her, was her panicky attempt to dilute the "toxic bleach" with water. She drank nearly 2 gallons, which so upset the electrolyte balance in her body that she died.

And, it's funny in a macabre sort of way when wannabe murderers attempt to poison someone by forcing them to drink bleach. This has happened numerous times in recent years. I'm not certain, but it's my recollection that all such murder attempts have failed until they either used some more toxic material, or used physical means, like a rolling pin.

Ironically, plain old table salt is FAR more toxic that bleach. The LD50 (lethal dose for 50% of test subjects) for salt is around 4g/kg, or about 250 grams for an average adult woman -- about 1/2 cup dry measure. By contrast, the LD50 for sodium hypochlorite is around 6g/kg . . . for 100% sodium hypochlorite, or about 100g/kg as 6% bleach. So plain table salt is around 25 times MORE toxic than "toxic chlorine bleach"!

If the lady who drank the bleach had done nothing, she would have ended up with a sore throat, and possibly, an upset stomach!

[chem geek]

Thanks Ben. I mostly am interested in using the least toxic method of pool sanitation. The woman whose house I bought used Pristine Blue. I am not an expert but using copper didn't strike me as less toxic so I am just trying to research and see what the experts think about what to use. Thanks for taking the time to respond to me!

Partly due to my prodding starting in October 2010, the EPA has just changed the registration on PristineBlue® as of 03-May-2012 so that they cannot call themselves a bactericide nor claim to "control bacteria". Now they can only claim “to control algae and nonpublic health bacteria, and bacteria that cause odor problems in residential swimming pools, spas and hot tubs.” The “nonpublic health bacteria” is a reflection of the fact that copper ions alone do not even control (let alone kill) fecal or blood-borne bacteria at the concentrations of copper allowed in pools.

[PoolDoc]

Just to explain what Chem_Geek is saying, Christine, he has been able to get the EPA to force Pristine Blue to be honest about what the product will and won't do . . . and what it won't do, is sanitize your pool.

[ChristinaLucia]

I appreciate the assistance. So I am just going to go with chlorine. I am just starting to figure out what I need by searching around the site. I have the previous owner's pool person coming in the morning to open the pool. I know nothing about pools and haven't even figured out how to take the automatic cover off. It is in ground fiberglass. It was probably closed last October (northern Michigan close to Canada). Is there anything I need to do to switch from Pristine Blue (chemicals left in the pool?) Or anything else I need to be aware of?

Thanks!