Practices
Water Chlorination
Also Known As Chlorination
Water Safety Practice
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The disinfection of drinking water with chlorine or chloramine compounds, a standard step in municipal water treatment. Disinfection destroys waterborne pathogens and is essential for preventing the spread of waterborne diseases, and chlorination is the most cost effective of the common disinfection methods, beside alternatives such as ozone and ultraviolet radiation. The practice carries a live scientific debate: chlorine applied to raw water that contains natural organic matter can form disinfection by products such as trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, and scientists have questioned prechlorination over the possible association of those by products with stomach and bladder cancer.
Facts
Origin YearThe year Jersey City became the first US city to routinely disinfect community drinking water; thousands of cities and towns followed over the next decade. Practice ClassHygiene and sanitation, water treatment 2 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Hand Hygiene, Practices Both practices use chlorine compounds against infection: chlorinated lime in the hand washing reform of the 1840s maternity clinics, chlorine disinfection in modern water treatment.
Both are 19th/20th century germ-theory-driven disinfection practices applied to a food or water supply.
In Branch
Sources
1. United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Official Site
US Centers for Disease Control and Preventionarchive.cdc.gov, History of Drinking Water TreatmentQuote, archive.cdc.gov, History of Drinking Water Treatment
In 1908, Jersey City, New Jersey was the first city in the United States to begin routine disinfection of community drinking water.
2. Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.Water purification, water treatmentQuote, Water purification, water treatment
Most industrialized countries treat water at water treatment plants to ensure compliance with regulations.
2. Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.Associated With: PasteurizationView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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