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This strikes me as more of a scare piece than useful. Certainly overuse of cleaning agents is a problem. But that sounds like more of a problem with education o

This strikes me as more of a scare piece than useful. Certainly overuse of cleaning agents is a problem. But that sounds like more of a problem with education or a mental issue than a problem with the cleaning agents, per se. I used to swim all the time in chlorinated pools as a kid. The only consequences were hair getting bleached to an greenish tint, and irritated eyes. Sodium and chloride are the constituents of plain 'ol salt. You body deals with it well. Your stomach acid of hydrochloric acid, and it doesn't seem to be an issue, either. I'm not worried about bleach at all, as long as it's used with common sense. So don't go overboard. Dont drink it. Don't take a both in concented bleach. I'm sure you'll be fine. I'm sure that there are exceptions, like maybe the fumes are too much for someone with asthma or whatever. There used to be problems with dioxins that were the redult of bleaching agents. But, again, if people exercise common sense, then I'm sure that society will muddle along.

chimeracoder 4y ago
> Sodium and chloride are the constituents of plain 'ol salt. You body deals with it well. Sure, you can make any substance sound innocuous or harmful by reducing it to its elemental constituents and then comparing them to other substances. The structure and form make the poison (along with the dose). I could tell you that benzene is "just" carbon and hydrogen, and your body deals with those well. Except benzene is extremely carcinogenic. Unlike, for contrast, toluene, which has a very similar chemical formula but is not carcinogenic, due to a different structure. Heck, your body "deals with" oxygen well. If you're referring to diatomic oxygen, that is - O₂. Your body does not like O₃, even though that's also "just" oxygen. Furthermore, you're conflating chloride with chlorine. Chloride is a single chlorine anion joined in an ionic bond (or dissociated aqueous, more commonly). Bleach contains a chlorite anion - the entire anion is negative, but chlorine is itself covalently bonded to another nonmetal (oxygen). The properties of specific nonmetals as part of a larger compound are completely different from the properties of those nonmetals in isolated ions. Both have elemental chlorine in them, but they're quite different chemically.
- webnrrd2k 4y ago
  The tone of your response is, like the original article, more of a scare piece. And I'm not trying to make bleach "sound innocuous". Bleach, when used with common sense and whatever guidelines that apply, is actually innocuous. It's just a fact that some substances are actually innocuous. Bleach has been used for cleaning and disinfecting for a very long time... people have used it daily for years on end in their jobs as dishwashers or whatever. If it was such a problem then people would have noticed the higher cancer rates, or whatever bleach-related diseases that actually occurr. The fact is that people in the US have had small amounts of bleach in their drinking water and it hasn't been an issue. People clean with bleach every day. It's used in laundry and all sorts of other things. As a kid I swam in some over-bleached pools and it didn't hurt me or any of my friends. The same thing happened in swimming pools across the nation. I'm sure that we swallowed some of it as we swam, too. It wasn't a big deal then. It's not a big deal now. I'm not a member of a multinational bleach consortium trying to trick you into using bleach against your better interests. If you don't want to use it then go ahead and stop. The article talks about problems with bleach if you're a "professional cleaner". Ok, fine. Maybe pro-cleaners should have better ventillation sometimes, or respirators, or something else. Maybe they are using a very strong bleach and that's the problem. Maybe it depends on what they are cleaning and there is some reaction that causes problems. All are worth taking precautions against. But a regular person who occasionally uses bleach to sanitize dishes or clean a bathroom or whiten laundry? I just don't believe there is any hazard worth worrying about.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    > As a kid I swam in some over-bleached pools Fun fact -- public pools are typically under-bleached, not over. That's why they smell so bad. The strong smell is coming from the chloramines generated when chlorine neutralizes organics, like pee. If they were able to maintain better chlorine levels they'd actually smell better. That's difficult though with the sheer number of children mistreating the water at a typical public pool. A well maintained home swimming pool should have a nearly undetectable amount of chlorine odor to the water. Hot tubs are a little more difficult because they have a small version of the same bather load problem a public pool has.
hinkley 4y ago
If you had friends with asthma, the pool was something they had to do in small doses. The lung irritation doesn't affect most people that much, but it also depends on how many people are peeing in the pool.

chimeracoder 4y ago

> Sodium and chloride are the constituents of plain 'ol salt. You body deals with it well. Sure, you can make any substance sound innocuous or harmful by reducing it to its elemental constituents and then comparing them to other substances. The structure and form make the poison (along with the dose). I could tell you that benzene is "just" carbon and hydrogen, and your body deals with those well. Except benzene is extremely carcinogenic. Unlike, for contrast, toluene, which has a very similar chemical formula but is not carcinogenic, due to a different structure. Heck, your body "deals with" oxygen well. If you're referring to diatomic oxygen, that is - O₂. Your body does not like O₃, even though that's also "just" oxygen. Furthermore, you're conflating chloride with chlorine. Chloride is a single chlorine anion joined in an ionic bond (or dissociated aqueous, more commonly). Bleach contains a chlorite anion - the entire anion is negative, but chlorine is itself covalently bonded to another nonmetal (oxygen). The properties of specific nonmetals as part of a larger compound are completely different from the properties of those nonmetals in isolated ions. Both have elemental chlorine in them, but they're quite different chemically.

webnrrd2k 4y ago
The tone of your response is, like the original article, more of a scare piece. And I'm not trying to make bleach "sound innocuous". Bleach, when used with common sense and whatever guidelines that apply, is actually innocuous. It's just a fact that some substances are actually innocuous. Bleach has been used for cleaning and disinfecting for a very long time... people have used it daily for years on end in their jobs as dishwashers or whatever. If it was such a problem then people would have noticed the higher cancer rates, or whatever bleach-related diseases that actually occurr. The fact is that people in the US have had small amounts of bleach in their drinking water and it hasn't been an issue. People clean with bleach every day. It's used in laundry and all sorts of other things. As a kid I swam in some over-bleached pools and it didn't hurt me or any of my friends. The same thing happened in swimming pools across the nation. I'm sure that we swallowed some of it as we swam, too. It wasn't a big deal then. It's not a big deal now. I'm not a member of a multinational bleach consortium trying to trick you into using bleach against your better interests. If you don't want to use it then go ahead and stop. The article talks about problems with bleach if you're a "professional cleaner". Ok, fine. Maybe pro-cleaners should have better ventillation sometimes, or respirators, or something else. Maybe they are using a very strong bleach and that's the problem. Maybe it depends on what they are cleaning and there is some reaction that causes problems. All are worth taking precautions against. But a regular person who occasionally uses bleach to sanitize dishes or clean a bathroom or whiten laundry? I just don't believe there is any hazard worth worrying about.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > As a kid I swam in some over-bleached pools Fun fact -- public pools are typically under-bleached, not over. That's why they smell so bad. The strong smell is coming from the chloramines generated when chlorine neutralizes organics, like pee. If they were able to maintain better chlorine levels they'd actually smell better. That's difficult though with the sheer number of children mistreating the water at a typical public pool. A well maintained home swimming pool should have a nearly undetectable amount of chlorine odor to the water. Hot tubs are a little more difficult because they have a small version of the same bather load problem a public pool has.

hinkley 4y ago

If you had friends with asthma, the pool was something they had to do in small doses. The lung irritation doesn't affect most people that much, but it also depends on how many people are peeing in the pool.