Beware Of Arsenic In Water Rather Need More Chlorine

Arsenic is a tasteless, odorless byproduct element which occurs in rock and oils and is used in industries and agriculture. These are used to make chemicals for wood preservation and to kill insects from agriculture crops. Wells water contains high levels of arsenic due to improper wells construction or overuse of fertilizers or herbicides in the land where well is constructed. Industrial and agriculture pollution contaminates water with arsenic and arsenic takes a longer time to get out of the environment.

Arsenic is a harmful poison and it leads to various health problems like stomach, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and partial paralysis, numbness of hands and feet, blindness, skin thickening and discoloration and cancers of bladder, lungs, skin, liver, kidneys and prostate.

Boiling does not remove arsenic from water even chlorine treatment also unable to remove arsenic from drinking water. Arsenic can be removed only by reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration, distillation or ion exchange processes. It is very difficult to remove arsenic at home so it is treated in water treatment plants.

Benefits of Chlorine Water:

Water is essential for life similarly chlorine is essential for safe and clean drinking water. Chlorination is the easiest way to make water clean. Safe chlorinated water increases life expectancy, declines mortality rates and eliminates microorganisms like bacteria, viruses, moulds, algae, fungi from water and also reduces diarrhoeal diseases, cholera, typhoid, fever, dysentery etc. Chlorine water also protects from recontamination of water.

Chlorine removes the bad odour and tastes of decaying algae and also keeps water pipes and filters dirt free. Chlorine water also destroys hydrogen sulphide and discards ammonia and other harmful compounds which produce unpleasant tastes.

Our water supply pipes contain corrosion resistant polyvinyl chloride pipe which is made up of chlorine which reduces the chance of leakage in public water and thus protects from water contamination.

Chlorine has a property of germ killing and is thus extensively used to supply safe drinking water to flood and hurricane prone areas and it reduces the water-borne diseases in them. Chlorinated water saves thousands of life from deadly diseases like cholera and typhoid.

But fully relying on chlorinated tap water is not a good idea as water transported to homes even contains dangerous E.coli bacteria which cause headaches, diarrhoea, cramping, nausea and vomiting etc. So even chlorinated drinking water needs filtration to remove unhealthy microorganisms or other harmful contaminants.

Long-term use of chlorinated water has some side effects on health like cancer, kidney and liver problems, immune and nervous dysfunction, cardiac and birth defects etc.

Chlorine water does not remove protozoa and it is off tastes and odour but benefits are more than harmful effects.