A: Well, let me just start by having you just give me a little bit of brief history on how chlorine was first used.
W: Well, chlorine has been around as an element for a long time. It was actually discovered back in 1774 by a Swedish Chemist. It was first used also at about that same time frame, 1790, in the country of France they learned how to make bleach out of it.
It was actually used for disinfection and whitening of clothes way back in that early time frame. Most of the commercial applications for chlorine and chlorine chemistry as we refer to it, did not develop until the early 1900's and the product in it's many different applications have essentially blossomed since 1900. Today we have chlorine going into a very wide array of applications. It's extremely versatile. It's the most essential building block of all of our society's and about half of all the chemistry that's practiced by man is based on chlorine.
A: What was it's first use?
W: It's first use was as bleach and as bleach of course as I say was used to whiten clothing and that was the application the French discovered in 1790 but they also learned of it's hygiene characteristics, it's ability to disinfect and they started using it as a disinfectant, in fact, in France today bleach is used more for the disinfection application than it is for the whitening of clothing.
A: I think when most people think of chlorine they think of it as a bleach and they also think of it as that stuff that smell funny, that makes pools safe to swim in, What should people know about chlorine that they don't often think of?
W: I think it's benefit to public health, and human health are absolutely essential and possibly not completely understood. First of all we have chlorine chemistry in our bodies. It can be found in our skin naturally, our teeth, our blood, it's essential to our digestion systems, there's over 250 chlorine chemistry reactions going on inside our bodies themselves which are essential to life as we know it. But in addition to that in it's man made form, of course, we use chlorine to chlorinate water so it's safe to drink that application is saving, we estimate, about 25,000 lives per year in the United States and is the single application of chlorine that has extended life probably from it's 50 year age span to 75 years average life span today and that's all occurred over about the last thirty years. But in addition, chlorine chemistry in the health field is also used to make about 957 of all the pharmaceuticals, many generic medicines, medical products such as saline tubes, and blood bags - it's used in hospital hygiene, X-ray film, the electricity delivery in the hospital, food refrigeration, and of course municipal piping for the movement of water and sewage are based on chlorine chemistry.
A: I want to back track and go to drinking water. What was wrong with drinking water before chlorine was put in it?
W: Well, in drinking water is dirty or unprotected as chlorination provides you get bacteria in the water, that's what I mean by dirty, it's unsanitary to drink and when you have bacteria in water as do still many parts of the world, you get diseases developing from that bacteria such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery. And of course, those are very deadly diseases and continues to kill a large number of people on a daily basis in the underdeveloped parts of the world where we don't have chlorination of water and sewage.
A: And you said in pharmaceuticals, what drugs specifically has chlorine been used in?
W: Well, there's quite a number of diseases that it has been used to attract Leukemia would be one of the examples of the major drugs for the treatment of leukemia based on chlorine chemistry. But thirty of the top pharmaceuticals manufactured today without going into each of the trade names, thirty of the top pharmaceuticals manufactured today are based on chlorine chemistry. Now, you don't find chlorine chemistry in the final product but it's essential in the manufacturing process
A: And so in Leukemia it's put in specific drugs and helps to fight the disease?
W: Exactly, it's used in specific drugs that are used to help to fight the disease. Another less specific but often critical application of chlorine chemistry as f said is used in the manufacturing of all the %-ray film. You couldn't do X-rays of any type in a hospital setting without chlorine chemistry having been used for the manufacture of the X-ray film.
A: What about in crop protection?
W: Well, it's essential there as well in the manufacture of pesticides and insecticides. Over 95% of all these crop protection chemicals are in fact made from chlorine chemistry and again you don't find the chlorine chemistry in the final product but only in very very small residual amounts. It's mostly used as a process intermediate and as we know crop protection chemicals today with there tremendous value in terms of providing food supply and therefore saving lives so, you could not make those products without chlorine chemistry.
A: Now, there's another product that uses a lot of chlorine and I don't think people necessarily realize that's how it's made and that's PVC.
W: Well, PVC is one plastic material made out of chlorine chemistry. Actually, half of the chlorine that's manufactured in the world goes into the manufacture of durable plastics. So, there's a couple dozen major families of plastics that are made out of chlorine chemistry. Polyvinyl chloride or PVC happens to be one of the more popular and one of the more versatile with the most extensive list o. applications that you could possibly think of probably from a plastic product all the way from construction materials to very flexible film-like materials. It's even used on the outer lining of the air bag in a number of automobiles. So, you can see tit PVC which is made out of chlorine chemistry but entirely inert in nature in it's final form is used in a wide range of applications, from very film like applications to very durable construction applications such as window frames, aiding, and pipe materials.
A: Bo you think a person could yet through the day without using some form of chlorine?
W: Actually it's almost impossible to consider existence as we know it today and the quality of life and health as we know it today without chlorine chemistry. Without going into every single small application you could easily come up with 10,000 different applications for chlorine chemistry and there all around us. We're wearing chlorine chemistry, we're sitting in chlorine chemistry, consumer products are made of chlorine chemistry for example, the aluminum can, we've talked about bleach, the refrigerator, the automobile are both dependent on chlorine chemistry for their manufacture, luggage that we would travel with, photo film as well as X-ray film, electrical wiring, adhesives, inks, paints, electronics products such as audio tapes, paper manufacture, you can't even refine and manufacture gasoline without chlorine chemistry.
A: Now the chlorine industry does have a problem, and that's the problem of dioxin. How have you been addressing that problem?
W: Dioxin is kind of a surrogate product for areas of concern for activists groups have for chlorine chemistry. Dioxin is a very very minute by-product of some chlorine chemistry reactions and I say minute because we are talking parts per trillion when we identify dioxin contamination as a by-product. This can be found in these very small amounts in some chlorine chemistry processes although very limited and also it's a by-product of incineration. but in fact dioxin has not been identified as a human health problem. In fact, dioxin can be found in a number of different settings and is actually created anytime you have carbon and heat and chlorine all together, Which you will find in your automobile exhaust, you'll find it in your fireplace, and you'll also find it in your backyard barbecue when you're out cooking a steak or a hamburger.
A: Is dioxin the only reason that chlorine gets bad press?
W: I think chlorine gets negative press because it's not well understood. It's a very important building block but yet at the same time while it's probably the most important building block known to man it's kind of silent chemistry in the sense that it's used heavily in process intermediate applications and the story of chlorine chemistry perhaps is not been told as well as we can tell it so that the consumer understands how vital it is to our lives as we live in today. I think as we come forward and talk more about chlorine chemistry and explain to people how it's used, what it's doing in the form of public health, and compare the relative risk of a chlorine chemistry product application to the next best alternative, it quickly becomes a non-issue and a non-story to the public as they see the importance of this chemistry to their lives.
A: Could we live safely without chlorine?
W: I think from all the public health applications and medical applications I've referred to we'd clearly be heading backwards in terms of life span and quality of life and our health would deteriorate if we took chlorine chemistry away. It's not only a chlorination of water and sewage but all these other medical devices and medical treatments based on chlorine chemistry that have been largely according to the world health organization perhaps singularly responsible for the extension of our life span.
A: Well, that is it for me. Do you have anything you want to add?
W: Well, I would only add that we're also making a significant contribution to the economy of the United States creating perhaps 90 billion dollars of economic value. 1.3 million jobs are based on chlorine chemistry in the United States. We are supplying important building blocks to over 200 industries who are directly dependent on the chlorine chemistry. And 40% of all the economic value created in the United States is dependent upon chlorine chemistry. We are also aiming a very favorable element of the United States balance of trade. So, chlorine chemistry is extremely important to our public health goes into a myriad of widely used and versatile applications but is also a extremely important part of the U.S. economic base.
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