Do you enjoy drinking swimming pool water?

Ah, the sweet smell of chlorine. Reminds you of walking to your first swimming lesson don’t it? Did you know that chlorine is also used in our tap water around the world as well? Now put those images together, drinking pool water… yummy.

Don’t be this guy ↑

Now I guess the water coming out of your tap hasn’t been swam in by millions of people, but like I said it does contain chlorine which is a disinfectant that is used to eliminate waterborne diseases. Health Canada has classified chlorine as “unlikely” (but could possibly happen) to be carcinogenic to humans.

So how much chlorine is really in your water? Currently, the standard is 4 parts per million, although it’s not unheard of for levels to be higher than that. If you check out some pool websites though it will tell you, don’t swim if the chlorine is over 4ppm. So wait, why are we allowed to drink that much then? This doesn’t sound too safe to me.

We have been assured that chlorine in our water will not harm us. Poison is poison though, even in small amounts, it must affect our body in some way. So let me science for you for a second. When you mix chlorine and other naturally occurring elements you get what we call Trihalomethanes. These toxins enter your body when you drink chlorinated water. Now a wide spectrum of health issues have been linked to THMs ranging from asthma to certain cancers. 10 of the best studies combined all reported that drinking chlorinated water increased the risk of contracting bladder cancer by 21%.

So where do we draw the line between good and bad? You have to make a decision as to if you believe the risks outweigh the benefits. Lucky for us, we have filters (such as Swift Green) that can eliminate these toxins if you so wish.

– K