The Green Update on Trees, Paper, and Chlorine

Are we still using trees for paper or is recycling taking hold? What about reducing the use of paper, has it slowed?

The hard truth is that still almost half of all the trees in North America are made into paper. It's pretty unimaginable...over 3.5 million acres of forest are chopped away to satisfy our GROWING demand.

And it gets worse.

It takes more than just trees to make paper. The wood is cut, ground up, pressed, dried out, then bleached with Chlorine. The part that really hurts is the side affects of the use of the Chlorine in the bleaching process.

Those side affects include the production of over 1,000 various organochlorines. Some of these organochlorines include carcinogen dioxin and mercury. These Chlorine side affects are extremely toxic and have proven in science that they simply won't go away.

If you have heard about limiting the amount of fish you eat...these side affects are the reason why. Here's a brief, and simplified, version...

The organochlorine gets into the water stream. A minow eats the organochlorine, a small fish eats the minow, a medium fish eats the small fish, a tuna eats the medium fish, and Joe eats the tuna.

So Joe ends up with the organochlorine. You get the picture.

After awhile, Joe has eaten enough tuna that he ends up with organochlorine in his system. And unlike normal food, this stuff won't go away.

Ok, so we're not finished with the trees and paper just yet. Since the trees were all chopped down, more erosion occurs. So to make matters worse now more sediment is getting into the streams.

And we won't even get into the part about natural habitats for other plants and animals being destroyed. You get it...it's all destructive.

So what does all of this have to do with a pool service company?

Knowledge can set us free. Well, of course that's assuming we actually use that knowledge. Pink Truck Pools wants to educate consumers about what is good and bad...how to do simple things to make a difference every day.

So the simple thing is reduce, reuse, recycle.

If you can read this article on your computer...don't print it. If you must print it because you're dying to show it to your 95 year old grandfather without email...print it on the back side of a piece of paper that you already used. Then after your grandfather reads the article, recycle the paper.

Wow - that was easy wasn't it?

Now for some better news. The Chlorine used for bleaching wood for paper is mixed with other chemcials to produce those bad side affects.

When you use straight Chlorine in your pool it should be dissolving in the pool water and generally should not be producing those nasty side affects. So your swimming water does not have the intense amount of horrible by-products from the paper producing process.

So you can swim with a healthy conscious. Especially knowing that you have killed nasty bacteria that would otherwise make a pool a haven for disease and mosquitos.

Keep up the good work by researching more...and use a couple pages less today.