Cleaner Water for Every Body
What copper teaches us about clean water, what chlorine leaves behind, and how anyone can swim a little safer.
Copper has been protecting water for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians stored drinking water in copper vessels, and copper researchers cite Egyptian medical papyri describing copper used to clean wounds.1 Today, Chilean hospitals have shown that copper surfaces cut bacterial contamination by roughly 80 to 90 percent, simply by being there.2 Yet almost every pool in the world runs on chlorine. Here is why, what that means for our bodies, and what families on any budget can do about it.
From copper to chlorine
Roman bath houses heated their pool water in bronze kettles, a copper alloy, as the engineer Vitruvius described, but kept them clean mostly with a steady flow of fresh water.3 Modern pools struggled with disease until 1910, when Brown University began using chlorine to sanitize its pool, opening the door to cheap public and backyard swimming.4 Chlorine remains the most common disinfectant because it is efficient and inexpensive, and stopping waterborne illness truly matters.5 Today copper is returning through ionizers that release copper and silver ions into pool water.12
What gets through our skin
Our skin blocks a lot, but not everything. Small, fat-soluble chemicals can pass through. When chlorine reacts with sweat, skin cells and urine in the water, it creates byproducts such as chloroform.6 Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency calculated that for everyday swimmers, about 40 to 45 percent of the chloroform they take in comes through the skin and about 50 to 55 percent through breathing, with children who swallow water while playing taking in up to 10 percent by mouth.7 Water-loving acid byproducts behave differently: a Spanish study found about 94 percent of them enter by swallowing and only about 1 percent through skin.5
The biggest thing we control is simple: how much we bring into the water, and how long we stay in it.
What it can do
Common effects include red eyes, dry or irritated skin, ear infections, and more asthma and breathing symptoms among swimmers.6 A Barcelona study of 49 swimmers found markers of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) damage after just 40 minutes in an indoor chlorinated pool, though the researchers stressed swimming’s real health benefits and called for the findings to be confirmed.8 The Danish assessment placed everyday swimmers’ chloroform dose about 20 times below the national safety limit, with heavy-training athletes near it.7
Free and low-cost steps for every family
- Shower before you swim, wear a cap, and never pee in the pool. Less body matter in the water means fewer byproducts.9
- Pick outdoor pools when you can. Byproducts build up in the humid air of indoor pools.5
- Keep sessions shorter and rinse off after. Time in the water drives the dose.7
- Teach little ones not to gulp the water. Kids swallow far more than adults.5
- Own a small pool? A floating solar copper ionizer, with replacement parts around €30 to €50 in Europe, can help you use less chlorine. Keep a small chlorine level and test for copper so it stays in the safe range.10
For those who can invest more
Natural swimming pools, first developed in Austria, clean water with a planted regeneration zone instead of chlorine; Spain has about 250 and central Europe about 900 public ones.11 Professional in-line copper and silver ionizers, paired with ultraviolet (UV) or ozone treatment, can lower chlorine use dramatically when kept at about 0.2 to 0.4 milligrams per liter of copper.12
Keep it honest, keep it safe
No copper device makes a pool truly “chlorine-free” on its own, and many public pools must keep a minimum chlorine level by law.13 Too much copper stains surfaces, can turn hair green, and is harmful to fish and pond life, so never drain copper-treated water into gardens, ponds or storm drains. Pool water is not drinking water for pets.
Why this matters to us
The Cat House is a conscious company that directs a share of its proceeds toward animals and humanity. That includes feeding programs, beach cleanup supplies, and our long-term dream, The Cat House Sanctuary, where we hope to use plant-filtered, low-chemical water that is safe for rescued animals and visiting wildlife. Cleaner water is a small act of love for every body that touches it.
Sources
- Reporte Minero (Chile), interview with Michael Schmidt, August 6, 2020. reporteminero.cl
- Diario de Cuyo (Argentina), “Más del 90% de las bacterias puede ser eliminado con cobre,” 2013. diariodecuyo.com.ar
- Vitruvius, De architectura, Book V, Chapter 10, “Über die Anlage der Bäder,” German translation Zehn Bücher über Architektur (Baden-Baden, 1959), digitized by Universitätsbibliothek Paderborn (Germany). digital.ub.uni-paderborn.de
- Mr Pool Man (Australia), “A brief history of swimming pools.” mrpoolman.com.au
- Universidad de Córdoba, haloacetic acid exposure study, Fundación MAPFRE, 2013. fundacionmapfre.org
- Billiken (Argentina), on chlorine and swimmer health. billiken.lat
- Miljøstyrelsen (Danish Environmental Protection Agency), Miljøprojekt 1078, 2006. mst.dk
- Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, UAB Divulga, September 2010. ddd.uab.cat
- Consumer (Fundación Eroski, Spain), “Efectos en la salud de los desinfectantes de piscinas.” consumer.es
- ManoMano (Spain), solar ionizer copper anode listings. manomano.es
- Consumer (Fundación Eroski, Spain), “Piscinas naturalizadas, bañarse como en un lago.” consumer.es
- Case-history paper on copper–silver ionization and corrosion. core.ac.uk
- Ecoportal (Argentina), “Cómo se hacen las piscinas ecológicas.” ecoportal.net