I went swimming yesterday in our condo pool, and it had salt water in it. Lovely! Seems like this would be a green alternative to chlorine, but this was new to me. What do you know about this? Does it disinfect the pool?
Cory Brennan Permaculturalist and founder of Create Clearwater
EXPERT ANSWER: Salt pools do not remove the chlorine, they only help regulate it. Salt is converted to chlorine with metallic plates, and then reconverts to salt. It is softer on the skin and hair (salt exists in your pool in about the same amounts that it exists in your body) and it eliminates harsh chloramines which give the pool the strong chlorine smell.
Another alternative is ionizing the water with copper and silver, which appears to have far less of a toxic footprint both for swimmers and the environment and may be less expensive than either salt or chlorine.
But natural pools, filtered by plants and soil, are the greenest alternative we know of.
Tags: alternative to chlorine, chlorine free swimming pool, ionizing pool, less chlorine, natural pool, Salt water in a swimming pool
I agree that natural pools, filtered by plants and soil, are the greenest alternative we know of. But at this time, it’s not a practical option for many people. There’s a great book called Natural Swimming Pools: Inspiration for Harmony with Nature, if you want to explore this as a possibility.
Cory’s suggestion to ionize the water with copper and silver may not work for everyone. Copper can be absorbed through the skin and cause a copper-zinc imbalance in the body. For more on this, see Copper-Zinc Imbalance and the book Why Am I Always So Tired? by Ann Louise Gittleman.
My husband and I chose to use hydrogen peroxide in our pool instead of chlorine. You can read all about it and see a photo of our crystal-clear water at My Chlorine-Free Swimming Pool.
Debra Lynn Dadd
The Queen of Green — New York Times
http://www.dld123.com