Chlorine is a natural element, a yellow-green gas at room temperature. It is heavier than air, but under the correct pressure and temperature, it can be converted into liquid. Chlorine is found in the earth and can also be found in the sea. It is essential to the life of animals and plants.

Chlorine is widely used as a bleaching agent in the manufacturing process of paper and cloth. When released into the air, it reacts with water to make hydrochloric acid. When this acid breaks down, the products that are left can lower the pH of water. Because chlorine is a gas, it is rarely found in soil and it does not accumulate in the food chain.

You are generally not in danger of exposure to chlorine. The most common place you will come into contact with it is at public swimming pools. It is used as a disinfectant in pools, as well as in public drinking water. You can also find it in everyday household bleach. Workers who make products such as bleach and disinfectants may have a higher risk of exposure and may inhale chlorine gas.

Chlorine gas can effect your health, depending on how much of it you have been exposed to and for how long. It is corrosive and irritating to the eyes, skin and respiratory tract. Exposure to low amounts may cause a sore throat, eye and skin irritation and coughing. Exposure to higher amounts of the gas can cause narrowing of the bronchi, burning of the eyes and skin and a blue coloring of the skin. It can also cause a build up of fluid in the lungs and pain in the chest.

Over 25,000 people worldwide die each day as a result of waterborne diseases. Water chlorination is one of the most widely used safeguards for drinking water supplies. In 1991, a Peruvian government decided to remove the chlorine in its country’s water supply. The results were devastating and led to a cholera epidemic that spread across South America and claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people.

Chlorine is one of the components in a wide variety of pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceuticals containing chlorine include those for treating malaria, whooping cough, typhoid fever and leukemia. The federal government has set legal safety limits regarding water and chlorine. There should only be four milligrams of chlorine per one liter of drinking water, and ten milligrams of chlorine to one liter of lake and stream water.