All That Dazzles ...May Be Lethal !

Rajiv Gupta

Many organic compounds appear to be innocuous but in reality are deadly to human life, like Organo-chlorides which are a part and parcel of our daily life. Read on..........

The same organochlorides, which constitute more that 50 percent of the substances create a big hole in the ozone umbrella, not only cause cancer but also form half of the synthetic environmental poisons which accumulate in our food chain.  They can also be destructive to our genes and are a major threat to mankind.

Going back in history, chlorine was used as a war-gas in World War-I.  This yellow-green, poisonous, gas does not exist anywhere in any natural form.  In nature, it constitutes merely 0.013 percent of the earth’s crust in the form of chloride salts (like common salt) and 1.9 percent of sea-water consists of chloride ions.  Today, man-made chlorine is a product of our industries, since this artificially-produced pure chlorine gas combines easily with substances to form innumerable compounds - like organochlorides - which are a bane to mankind and nature.

In fact, 80 percent of the chlorine manufactured is used for making organochlorides, which the consumer industry has to sell as commodities, otherwise they all become waste-products.  Statistics reveal that the world-wide consumption of chlorine (or chlorine compounds) averages around 35 million tonnes a year.

Globally speaking, Chloro Fluoro Carbons (CFCs) and halons, which cause the destruction of the ozone canopy, are made of chlorine and bromine.  This affects the prevention of the penetration of shortwave ultra-violet radiation from the sun, which causes cancer, blindness and even death.

These CFCs are used in the manufacture of foamed plastics, packaging and car-interiors.  They are also utilised in the ordinary bed-mattresses (containing foamed plastics) as well as those chairs and sofas which are foamed with CFCs.  They are manufactured as insulation material in the form of boards and inlays.  The CFC list also includes refrigerators, air-conditioners, fire-extinguishers and sprays of all sorts.

At the national level, an agrarian country like India faces a grave threat of losing its soil-fertility due to the ever-increasing usage of organochlorides - in the form of pesticides in our fields.  Chlorine is used not only in agriculture but also in forestry, chemical and pharmaceutical industry, metallurgy, plastics, food-stuffs, construction industry, water treatment, pulp and paper industry and many more fields.  This ‘environment-unfriendly’ list seems a long and unending one.

Take for example, the white paper we use for writing.  This dazzling white writing paper, and similar paper we use for various other purposes is bleached with chlorine.  The clothes we get dry-cleaned and get the immaculate effect, is also due to chlorine-bleaching.  So, whenever you are dazzled by such artificial glitter - think of chlorine and all its ill-effects.

Chlorine-bleaching in the paper and textile industries is a major threat to our environment.  Since organochlorides are formed when chlorine combines with various types of organic materials in the production process.  Hundreds of unknown substances are discharged from the pipes of chlorine-bleaching plants, which are extremely harmful for fish, sea weeds, algae and other marine organisms present in the sea - where the rivers finally dump their lethal effluent.

One should avoid using packaging and paper products bleached with chlorine.  The same goes for tissue paper, baby nappies and sanitary towels.  Even the fine paper used for writing, copying and printing should be bleached with hydrogen peroxide and not with chlorine - which is the general practice.