The dirt on bleach - environmental effects of using household bleach - Answering Machine

Vegetarian Times, Dec, 1995 by Lee Reilly

From everything we could gather, what Clorox says is true. "Greenpeace is not concerned about [household usage of bleach]," says Rice. "Household and swimming pool [usage] are very small."

Small volume isn't the only reason scientists are unconcerned about household bleach. Conditions in your laundry room are vastly different from conditions in a paper-bleaching plant, and as a result the household bleach behaves differently. "I am not aware of chlorine in washing machines causing significant hazards," says Vern Snoeyink, Ph.D., a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "We're not aware of any significant problems with the bleach used in laundry, even at some of the bigger facilities," says the IJC's Bevaquah. "It's just not a problem."

Why isn't it a problem? Scientists say that at least two major conditions are necessary to produce a long-chain organochlorine like dioxin, and they aren't present in a household situation. To produce dioxin, the chlorine must have a low pH, and it must have a precursor (a set of carboncontaining molecules) to react with. The pH of household bleach is too high, says de Fur, and there are few, if any precursors available in the average load of dirty socks. In contrast, a paper-bleaching plant is packed with carbon-containing substances, and has a low pH. "I suppose you could throw a bunch of sawdust in the laundry," speculates McCabe, "but even then you still could'nt make dioxin."

Your final concern probably stems from wondering what happens when the bleach goes down your drain. According to the Clorox ad campaign, household bleach breaks down to "little more than salt and water" after use. In addition to salt and water, Clorox's studies show that between 3 percent and 5 percent of the bleach's original chlorinated compound is still intact after use. In a septic system, this compound could kill all the good microbes hat compost the waste and make the septic system work-but since there's so little chlorine, the microbes will prevail, according to Snoeyink. Finally, there exists a small chance that some of the chlorine will encounter ammonia and become monochloramine, chlorine, which could be dangerous to wildlife if it is directly discharged into the environment, says Snoeyink. However, Clorox says it has not been able to measure monochloramine, and Snoeyink notes that water-treatment plants typically remove monochloramine before discharge anyway.

Even though household bleach itself does not damage the environment, some consumers may still decide to forgo it. Making and transporting chlorine, which is toxic, are both dangerous processes. Greenpeace reports that despite tight controls, organochlorines are occasionally produced during chlorine manufacture, and Clorox, which buys the chlorine to make its bleach, readily admits that a serious transport accident in the late 1970s caused a total overhaul of its handling systems. But Mary Ellen Waghorm, president of Greenhome, a Chicago-based catalog of ecological products for household use, says you will have trouble finding an acceptable substitute for chlorine bleach. "I use lemon juice and put whatever it is in the sun," she says. "But that's not always practical, and it's not always effective."