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Understanding Ozone
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Ozone
Articles
Scientific
and Medical
References on Ozone
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Much-maligned ozone can rid your home or office of modern
pollution that can be more dangerous than outside air.
By Ron Rendleman
Most folks know ozone by name, especially since the upper
atmosphere’s protective ozone layer began disappearing. But
a lot of misinformation, conjured up to further private
agendas, would have you believe ozone is the bad guy of
ground-level pollution.
True, ozone is present in smog, partly because the processes
that create pollution also create ozone. When sunlight
strikes industrial or automotive pollution, oxygen atoms are
stripped from the pollutant molecules and form peroxy
radicals—like nitrous oxide, nitric acid, sulphur dioxide
and carbon monoxide. At the same time the freed oxygen atoms
bond with the free oxygen in the air and form ozone. The
more pollution, the more ozone.
But demonizing ozone is like blaming the fireman for the
fire. Without ozone, pollution would render cities
uninhabitable.
Nature creates tremendous amounts of ozone each day with the
help of ultraviolet rays of the sun or electrical discharges
of thunderstorms that neutralize many biological problems
like bacteria, viruses, mold or chemical out-gassing, and to
some extent, man-made pollution. Take a walk after a
thunderstorm and notice the clean smell in the air—that’s
ozone at work.
So what exactly is ozone? It’s stable oxygen O2 that has
picked up an extra atom of oxygen and becomes O3. Scientists
call it activated oxygen. At 20-plus miles above Earth, the
ozone layer plays a crucial geophysical role in protecting
people from excessive solar UV radiation.
Discovered in the 1840s, it wasn’t until 1906 that the first
ozone water purification facility was built in France. Today
there are over 2,000 similar plants worldwide. Recently Los
Angeles built the largest ozone purification plant in the
world. The city chose ozone over chlorine because the latter
has a bad health record.
Chlorine has been found to cause various illnesses, from
nose and eye irritation to possibly even cancer. A few years
ago more than 100 people living in Milwaukee died, and over
400,000 became ill in one cryptosporidium outbreak that
chlorine failed to control.
The fact that ozone is a powerful air disinfectant is
undisputed. Twin City Testing Labs in Minnesota demonstrated
a steady decline in live strains of infectious
micro-organisms in four hours with as little as .05 ppm of
ozone. These germs incubating in dirty air ducts could be
projected to be completely eliminated in 24 hours from the
lab’s data. It has been argued that the same disinfecting
action takes place in the human sinus cavities where
invading microbes first take hold.
Many people, especially the elderly, will retreat in doors,
thinking they can avoid toxins from city air pollution, or
if they are informed, from the products of chemtrails spewed
out in recent years at 25,000 feet by tanker planes. But
they may not be escaping at all.
As far back as 1989, the Environmental Protection Agency
told Congress in hearings that indoor pollution is one of
the nation’s most important environmental health problems.
They found that most homes have airborne concentrations of
hazardous and toxic chemicals two to five times higher than
outdoors. In a five-year study, many homes even had
pollution levels 70 times higher inside than outside!
Today’s building methods and codes and the demand for energy
conservation have created super-insulated airtight indoor
spaces. Lower heating and cooling costs result, but natural
air cleaning agents like ozone stay outside while pollution
is trapped inside.
Two noted scientists, Drs. Gurbermskill and Dmitriev. found
that air conditioning in office buildings caused workers to
complain of headaches, weakness and oxygen deprivation that
led to illness, and that colds, rheumatism and
cardiovascular disorders significantly in creased with
conditioned air even in the absence of typical indoor air
pollution.
The average home today contains more chemicals than were
found in a typical chemistry lab at the turn of the century,
much of it stored under kitchen and bathroom sinks—from bug
sprays to detergents to oven cleaners. Most poisonings
happen over a long period of time by daily exposure to
toxins that enter the body through mouth or skin, and
significantly, through breathing air loaded with chemical
out-gassing.
In a study conducted over a 15-year period, women who worked
at home had a 54 percent higher death rate from cancer than
women who worked away from home. The reason? Daily exposure
to hazardous chemicals in ordinary household products.
What are just some of the toxins the EPA and other
researchers found in inside air?
- Benzene from paint, new carpet, new drapes and
upholstery
- Ammonia in tobacco smoke and cleaning supplies
- Chloroform from paint, new carpet, new drapes and
upholstery
- Formaldehyde from tobacco smoke, plywood, cabinets,
furniture, particleboard, office dividers, new carpet,
new drapes, wallpaper, etc.
- Sulphur dioxide, cyanide, and carbon monoxide from
tobacco smoke
- Trichlorethylene from paints, glues, furniture and
wallpaper
- Carbon tetrachloride from paints, new drapes, new
carpet and cleaning supplies
- Nitrogen dioxide from stoves, furnaces
- Radon gas entering through foundations
- Pollen from plants and trees
- Mold spores from moisture and bacteria
- Dust mites from dust and bacteria
- Bacteria from all areas of the home
Exposure to these chemicals resulted in: headaches, memory
loss, slow poisoning pulmonary irritation, fatigue,
drowsiness, eye, skin and nasal irritation, dizziness,
depression, respiratory irritation, gynecological problems,
shortness of breath, cancer and bronchial constriction.
For the first time in history, it’s safer to be in the
wilderness than in your own home.
It’s alarming that indoor air has become so contaminate,
especially when children are considered. Physiologically,
they are more vulnerable to toxic vapors be cause of their
higher metabolic rate. They breathe in more than twice as
much oxygen (and therefore toxins) relative to body size
than adults. They are more active, which increases their
breathing rate and they play close to the floor where
heavier pollutants settle. Modern school buildings that are
shut tight have the same problems.
These findings are not comforting. But there is good news: a
few years ago some astute scientists reasoned that just as
nature uses ozone to protect life on Earth, it might be
possible to produce ozone electronically for indoor
protection against polluted air and water. Small portable
generators were designed to decontaminate a whole house.
The inventors were surprised to discover that ozone would
remove, in hours, and sometimes minutes, very tough odor
problems like smoke damage from fire, pet smells and stale
tobacco odors often found in public places.
Practically overnight, the $430 billion food industry began
using ozone to protect produce from spoiling in transport by
sanitizing packaging materials or adding to water to wash
food. Meat packers found placing an ozone machine in a
cooler kept meat fresher much longer.
Myron James, Technology Center Manager, said: "Ozone is very
efficient in killing pathogens and spoilage organisms, and
its use by the food industry will be welcomed as another
tool to ensure the production of safe and wholesome foods."
Far from being a "bad guy," properly used ozone is a great
remedy, even a Godsend perhaps, for modern society’s
ever-increasing contaminated air and water.™
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