2023-07-31 00:04:29
There are two possible types of toxicity.
Firstly, excess chlorine. This risk mainly concerns private swimming pools where controls of free chlorine and chloramines in the water are left to the discretion of owners, who often have tendency to over-chlorinate to obtain very blue water. In these over-chlorinated waters, swimmers are exposed to the irritating effects of free chlorine on mucous membranes and the respiratory tract. During holidays (rental of villas or frequenting hotel swimming pools), the duration and level of exposure can be very important : children, in a few weeks, can have a cumulative attendance (in hours) practically equivalent to one year of attendance at a public swimming pool!
On the other handthe toxicity linked to an excess of chloramines and other chlorination by-products the reaction of chlorine with organic matter brought in by swimmers (urine, saliva, sweat). The most dangerous of these chlorination residues is la trichloraminean irritating and very volatile gas which, due to its insolubility in water, is not retained by the upper respiratory tract and can therefore exert its toxic action on the deep lung.
Trichloramine can reach a very high concentration in public indoor pools as well as in private indoor pools or under a low shelter. During peak hours, its concentration in the air can exceed 500 µg/m3 (threshold recommended by the WHO), or even 1,000 µg/m3 if air renewal is insufficient. No pollutant in the ambient air reaches such values! Recently, the standards have been lowered in some countries such as France, Sweden and Switzerland to 200 µg/m3 or 300 µg/m3 (but regulatory air quality controls are episodic or even non-existent).
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#Chlorine #swimming #pools #good #lungs
