Chlorine: What You Should Know (NAPSA)—When people think about chlorine, the first use they may think about is pool maintenance products and household bleach. What many people don’t know is that chlorine is an essential and important part of everydaylife. It is important to distinguish the difference between chlorine shipped on railcars and the chlorine compounds in everyday necessities such as pool maintenance products. Chlorine on rail cars is elemental chlorine shipped as liquefied gas under pressure. It is haz- ardous if spilled or leaked in an uncontrolled environment. While chlorine compounds used in pool and spa products must be handled with caution, they are not the same as elemental chlorine and thus do not present the same hazardlevel. Here are some facts you may not know about chlorine: Chlorine is the planet’s eleventh most abundant element. When combined with other chemicals it’s used to make pharmaceuticals, plastics, nylons, paint and hundredsof other items. Chlorine helps make automobiles safer, more efficient, and more comfortable as a component in the manufacture of seat belts, air bags, upholstery, bumpers and many other automobile parts. The most familiar chlorine compound is table salt (sodium chloride). Chlorine is essential for safe Chlorine in its many forms makes life cleaner, safer and more comfortable. drinking water. Virtually all public water systems that disinfect their water use some form of chlorine. Chlorine is the only water disinfectant that purifies all the way to the tap and is partly responsible for the 50 percent increase in Americans’ life expectancy in the 20th century. Chlorine bleach and other chlorine-based products are used to kill germs in restaurants, meat processing plants and consumer homes. Chlorine has a special place in the lives of pool and spa owners. Nearly every public pool and nine out of 10 residential pools are sanitized with chlorine compounds. For 50 years, BioGuard’ has strived to provide safer and easier pool and spa maintenance programs. For more information on swim- ming pool and spa maintenance products, visit www.bioguard.com.
