Chlorine's Bad Reputation

    Chlorine can be unpleasantly detected by your nose at concentrations as low as 3 ppm.    It's toxic to humans in its elemental form.  It can react explosively with turpentine, ether, ammonia, hydrocarbons, hydrogen, sawdust, and phosphorus.   Most grocers have to store the chlorine containing bleach far from the ammonia (check it out at the grocery store).  Chlorine derivatives can generate poisons and can deplete the precious ozone layer.  These are the usual facts that we hear about chlorine.
   Consider the millions of lives that automobile accidents claim every year.  Yet automobiles make our lives very convenient by allowing travel.   Automobiles, like chlorine, are very beneficial when used properly.  In fact, chlorine is much more important to our lives than automobiles.
    Chlorine, in the form of hydrochloric acid, digests the food in our stomachs.  Our immune systems use chlorine to help fight disease.  Chlorine disinfects our water, protects our crops, and serves as a vital building block for many important chemicals.  In fact, by disinfecting our water alone, chlorine has increased world life expectancy by 50% and has dramatically decreased infant mortality rates.  85% of all pharmaceuticals contain or are manufactured with chlorine!
    To summarize, just like many things in our lives we must use chlorine properly.  CFC's and other harmful chlorine derivatives are now being phased out.   So please go easy on chlorine....your life depends on it!

References:
Singh, Y.R. and K.K. Roy Showdhury, "Chlorine in the Service of Society", Chemical Engineering World, March 1998, Vol. XXXIII, No. 3.