CHLORINE AND TOXICITY
FAIRY-TALE
In the meantime we know that all chlorinated chemicals are
very harmful for mankind and environment.
Greenpeace leaflet 'Chlorine is everywhere' (in Dutch) - summer 1994.
FACTS AND FIGURES
Statement
There are no toxic materials, there are only toxic doses.
Source: Paracelsus, one of the pioneers of toxicological science, about
400 years ago.
How much is toxic?
Paracelsus was and still is right. Anything can be a deadly poison, if
you eat or drink or inhale too much of it. Nevertheless, there are
enormous differences in amounts. When you drink about fifteen liters of
water, you will not survive it. At the other side of the scale, only
two billionst of a gram of botulin toxine from the botulin bacteria is
enough to kill you.
Chlorinated chemicals are all between those limits. For instance from
PVC-powder you can eat kilograms, it is not toxic at that dose, it will
not be digested at all and will leave the body as is. Hydrochloric acid,
an indispensable part of our digesting system, will only be deadly at
high concentrations. Chlorine is an average poison, and TCDD-dioxin is
the most powerful poison, mankind has ever made (but not voluntary).
Toxic substances in industry
All measurements in ppm (parts per million)
deadly dose which kills 50% of rats
within one hour by inhalation: |
| hydrochloric acid: |
3124 |
| chlorine: |
293 |
| methyl isocyanate (Bhopal): |
5 |
| ozone: |
4.8 |
| TCDD-dioxin equivalent to: |
0.25 |
Source: List of toxic substances, Ministery of Labour, The
Netherlands.
As you can see, the cause of the Bhopal disaster was the escape of
methyl isocyanate (an organic nitrogen compound) from a tank.
Greenpeace uses this fatal accident to say that this can happen with
chlorine or hydrochloric acid too. In fact nothing is impossible, but
because chlorine is sixty times less toxic, with the same
circumstances, you will have sixty times less victims. And with
hydrochloric acid, that would give six hundred times less victims.
Toxics in nature
If you think that nature is sweet and harmless, next figures will learn
you that mankind is only a potter in making poisons, compared with
nature:
Toxic substances in nature:
deadly dose which kills 50% of rats within one hour by ingestion,
all measurements in µg/kg
bodyweight
deadly dose which kills 50% of rats
within one hour by ingestion: |
| strychnin (plant): |
500 |
| dioxin TCDD (woodfires, composting): |
300 |
| Tetradoxin (fish): |
15 |
| Tetanos toxin (bacteria): |
0.0001 |
| Botulin toxin (bacteria): |
0.00003 |
Source: H. Compaan, research institute TNO, The Netherlands.
One µg/kg bodyweight means that a microgram - one millionst of
a gram - for each kg of bodyweight is enough to kill 50% of the rats
within one hour. So you can see that botuline toxin is a ten million
times stronger poison than the most toxic dioxin, wether it is made by
nature or mankind.
THE ALTERNATIVES
Every material is toxic. Crude oil itself is toxic, so all from oil
derived materials or the use of energy, uses toxic products. The same
is true for almost any industry.
All industrial activities give more-or-less toxic waste. This is true
for chlorine factories and for factories which don't use chlorine, for
industrial and for 'natural' products. If that waste is treated
accordingly, then it is no problem in either case.
CONCLUSION
There is no reason to treat the toxicity of chlorinated chemicals
different from non-chlorinated. And there is no reason at all to accuse
chlorine in general to give more toxic (by)products than other
elements. In fact nature is a much stronger supplier of extremely toxic
products than industry.
You are at level two of the Chlorophiles pages.
Created: March 10, 1996.
Last update: 5 December, 2003.
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