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Tel.(Pta)  012 669 9919 or 012 669 3025   Fax.  (Pta) 086 652 6752  email  (Pta) admin@cosmodec.co.za  or gene@cosmodec.co.za      

  P.O.Box 123 Laezonia 0026  (Pretoria)  Web address:  www.cosmodec.co.za

 

Easy to use Crystalite is a uniquely formulated safe chemical mix designed to clarify swimming pool water. Crystalite prevents pool water from turning green even during the most hostile conditions such as after thunder storms.

Crystalite has been 5 years in the making, carefully formulated by microbiologists and  water treatment specialists.

Crystalite contains no chlorine.

Backwash or rinse water can be directed onto grass, flowers, gardens etc with no detrimental effects.

Birds love to bath in Crystalite water and insects are attracted to it.

Gone are the days of burning eyes,  and all the other negatives associated with chlorine.

Crystalite does not harm pool pump seals

Crystalite does not harm swimwear.

Instructions (For 50,000 Lt. Pool)

Check pH to be between 6,2 and 7,0.

Backwash.

With pool pump and motor running and valve set to filter position, pour entire contents of both containers of Crystalite into the weir. (Do not pour directly into the pool )

This is sufficient for one month.

Back wash once weekly or when necessary.

For added sanitation (particularly public pools, school pools, hotel pools etc.) Add one cup of chlorine per filter per week into the weir whilst the pump and motor is running, commencing 3 days after the Crystalite has been added.

Do not cast chlorine directly into the pool water.

For larger or smaller pools proportionately increase or decrease the quantity of Crystalite.

Sit back and A relax-a-voux @ while you and your family enjoy Crystalite clear, safe, sanitized pool water year in and year out!

Crystalite® now with Sun Block additive that helps to prevent sun burn when swimming in Crystalite® treated water. This is a world first South African patented technology exclusive to Cosmo-Dec and Crystalite®

                                 

                                                   Before Crystalite      After crystalite          A Crystalite pool is a beautiful pool  Crystalite is used here          Crystalite effect

Download Power Point slide show

 

Crystalite has an extraordinary alternate use in the equine world as a excellent hoof hardener and fungi and algi destroyer.

Simply brush onto the underside of the effected horses hoof about twice a month during the condition

 

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African Wildlife ISSUE 57 No. 2 AUTUMN 2003 (Apr/May/Jun)

THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF SWIMMING POOLS by Dr John Ledger

There are 650 000 swimming pools in South Africa. Each one of them is treated with chemicals to maintain the water in a clear and hygienic condition. Every pool has a filter which is “back-washed” to clear sediment and residues. The back-wash contains at least some of the pool chemicals. What is the cumulative environmental impact of this cocktail in our streams and rivers?

A sparkling swimming pool in a suburban garden. Photo by Dr John Ledger.Like many middle-class South Africans, I succumbed to the pressure of my family to “put in a pool”. Ours was small
(40 000 litres), of pleasing oval shape, with a water feature that enhanced our indigenous garden. It was soothing to wake to the splash of running water, and many birds came to bath in the waterfall. A flock of white-eyes pitched up every afternoon to flutter and fluff their feathers, some of the tiny birds literally being washed off their feet on occasion!

The pool became a feature of my daily life. Every morning I would scoop up the leaves with a long-handled net, and fish drowned goggas from the weir. One morning I put my hand in without looking and clutched a large, spiny, very much alive Parktown Prawn! From then on I always looked first!

I learned how to test the pH of the water, and to keep it between 7.2 and 7.6 for the marbelite pool. The water was kept free of bacteria by throwing in a cup of granular chlorine every day, to make the test water yellow at 2-3 parts per million of chlorine. Once a month I would throw in a couple of litres of blue compound to control algae and keep the water clear. The filter was back-washed every week.

As the years went by the children used the pool less and less. I would come home from trips away to find the weir completely blocked with leaves and the pump motor stopped. The water chemistry often went haywire because of insufficient chlorine. Green and black algae took over the water and the walls. I spent a fortune on algaecides, only to stain the walls of the pool dark brown. Then I threw in metal removers, water clarifiers, flocculants and magic Blue Goo, guaranteed to make your water sparkle again like new. I actually began to hate the pool because of its demands on my time.

One day I found what I thought would be the solution to my problems. A new, two-pack magic bullet, a once a month pool treatment that promised sparkling water and no hassles. First the clear liquid in the bottle, politely called the “biocide”, was poured around the edge of the pool, then the floating plastic chlorinator was placed in the weir. Pool peace at last!

Over the next few days I was mighty pleased with the sparkling water, but something was wrong with the birds and the bees. The thrushes, bulbuls, sparrows, weavers and white-eyes stopped bathing in the waterfall. The weir was full of very dead insects. Previously the bugs in the weir usually stayed alive for quite a long time, eventually drowning when they ran out of energy. But now the insects seemed to die the moment they touched the water! During November 2002, I estimated that at least 1 000 honey bees, and numerous other insects of many families and species, perished in my pool every week. What could it be? The biocide, Boet!

I figured that this particular biocide was toxic not only to algae and bacteria in the pool, but to insects as well. I stopped using the product, and went back to granular chlorine. The birds came back to bath in the waterfall, and only a few bees drowned in the weir every week. I resolved to share my experience with others, and that is why you are reading this article. I phoned around, and I spent a couple of hours in Selwyn’s pool shop in Rosettenville reading the labels on the numerous products that people buy to keep their pools in shape.

I learned that South Africa has an estimated 650 000 swimming pools, distributed along the following provincial lines: 58 per cent in Gauteng; 14 per cent in the Western Cape; 14 per cent in KwaZulu-Natal; seven per cent in the Free State and seven per cent in the Eastern Cape (the other provinces are incorporated in those named). The number of pools is growing at about 1-2 per cent per annum, but there is apparently a tendency towards building smaller pools (40-50 thousand litres) rather than larger ones.
My time in the pool shop taught me that pool chemicals have to be registered by the Department of Agriculture in terms of Act 36 of 1947, the Fertilisers, Farm Feeds and Agricultural Remedies Act. Some products for removing metals and for water clarity apparently contain chemicals that do not require registration.

The basis of swimming pool treatment is chlorine, added to the pool daily or every second day, and this is commonly in the form of Calcium Hypochloride or Trichloroisocyanuric Acid. This controls bacteria in the water. Calcium Hypochloride is the same chemical as household bleach, and we may use this in low concentrations to sterilise drinking water, so it is not very toxic.

Algae in pools require a different armoury of chemicals, and their labels make for heavy reading and difficult spelling. They may contain elemental copper with carboxylate and polyhydroxy acid stabilisers; or Sodium Tetraborate Pentahydrate; or Alkyl Dimethyl Benzyl Ammonium Chloride; or Didecyl Dimethyl Ammonium Chloride; or Epichlorohydrin Polyamide Resin; or Benzalkonium Chloride; or Polymerichiguanide Hydrochloride; or (wait for it!) Poly (2-Hydroxyethylene – Dimethyliminio 2-Hydroxypropylene Dimethyliminio-Methylene) Dichloride. Whew!
The manufacturers of pool chemicals have recognised that people like me are looking for something more convenient than a cup of muti every day and a bottle of algaecide every month, so there has been an increasing trend towards longer-lasting products which incorporate chlorine compounds, algaecides and water treatment chemicals. These are packaged as “floaters” or “twin-packs” which should last for a month in an average-sized pool.

A newly released modern floater contains the following: Trichloroisocynuric Acid 686g/Kg; Sodium Dichloroisocyanurate 132g//Kg; N-Alkyl Dimethyl Benzyl Ammonium Chloride 5g/Kg; Oxyethylene bis(Alkyl Dimethyl Ammonium Chloride) 2.3g/Kg; and Poly(Oxyethylene (Dimethyliminio) Ethylene (Dimethyliminio) Ethylene Dichloride 1.2 g/Kg. The biocide which made my birds unhappy and killed my bees contains N-Alkyl Dimethyl Benzyl Ammonium Chloride and Didecyl Dimethyl Ammonium Chloride. If all the pools in South Africa used the same product as I did, we could theoretically kill 650 million bees every week in the summer time. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

So is this a call to environmental activists to launch a new campaign to Save our Bees? Not at all! It is a request to readers to let me know about any products that cause unusual insect mortality in swimming pools. It is a request to our universities to undertake research to look at the possible effects of swimming pool backwash on aquatic ecosystems, invertebrates and amphibia. It is a request to the Registrar of Act 36 of 1947 to look carefully at the compounds that are being combined in modern swimming pool chemicals. And it is a plea to swimming pool chemical manufacturers to observe the principles of responsible care implicit in the King II report on corporate governance.

Dr John Ledger was a research entomologist at the South African Institute for Medical Research for 18 years. He directed the Endangered Wildlife Trust for 17 years. He is now an independent consultant and writer on the environment.
John.ledger@wol.co.za

 

 

 

 

 

New York - Swimming in chlorinated pools may increase the risk of a child getting asthma and respiratory allergies like hay fever, according to a Belgian study.

Researchers from the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels, Belgium, found that teenagers who spent more than 100 hours swimming in chlorinated pools were up to six times more at risk of having asthma than other teens.

"The impact of these chemicals on the respiratory health of children and adolescents appears to be much more important - at least by a factor of five - than that associated with secondhand smoke," toxicology professor Alfred Bernard told Reuters Health.

"There is little doubt that pool chlorine is an important factor implicated in the epidemic of allergic diseases affecting the westernised world."

In the study, Bernard and his colleagues compared the health of 733 teenagers aged 13 to 18 who swam in chlorinated pools for various amounts of time with that of 114 teenagers who swam mostly in pools sanitized with a mix of copper and silver.

Among "sensitive" adolescents, the odds for hay fever were between three and six times higher for those who swam in chlorinated pools for more than 100 hours, the researchers reported in the journal Pediatrics.

Changes in the airway
 

The odds of allergic rhinitis were increased two to three times among those who logged more than 1 000 hours in chlorinated pools.

Among children and teens who swam in chlorinated pools for between 100-500 hours, 22 children out of 369, or 6%, had current asthma, compared with only 2 of 144, or 1.8%, of those who had spent less than 100 hours in chlorinated pools.

The proportions with asthma rose with longer exposure, to 14 out of 221, or 6.4%, who had been swimming for 500-1 000 hours, and 17 out of 143, or 11.9%, for those who swam for more than 1 000 hours.

The risk of asthma and allergy was not influenced by swimming in copper-silver sanitised pools and children without allergic tendencies were not at increased risk of developing allergies.
 

"The only plausible explanation" for these observations, the researchers said, is that the chlorine-based toxic chemicals in the water or hovering in the air at the pool surface caused changes in the airway and promote the development of allergic diseases.
 

"It is probably not by chance that countries with the highest prevalence of asthma and respiratory allergies are also those where swimming pools are the most popular," said Bernard.

 

Chlorine causes allergies?

Is swimming pool chlorine fueling the allergy epidemic?
By Megan Brooks

Pic: Getty Images

Swimming in a chlorinated pool may boost the odds that a child susceptible to asthma and allergies will develop these problems, a study released today indicates.

"These new data clearly show that by irritating the airways of swimmers chlorination products in water and air of swimming pools exert a strong additive effect on the development of asthma and respiratory allergies such as hay fever and allergic rhinitis," Dr. Alfred Bernard, a toxicologist at the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels, Belgium, noted in an email to Reuters Health.

"The impact of these chemicals on the respiratory health of children and adolescents appears to be much more important - at least by a factor of 5 - than that associated with secondhand smoke," Bernard noted.

Taken together with his team's prior studies, he added, "There is little doubt that pool chlorine is an important factor implicated in the epidemic of allergic diseases affecting the westernized world."

In the current study, Bernard and colleagues compared the health of 733 adolescents, 13 to 18 years old, who swam in chlorinated outdoor and indoor pools for various amounts of time with that of 114 "control" adolescents who swam mostly in pools sanitized with a concentration of copper and silver.

In children with allergic sensitivities, swimming in chlorinated pools significantly increased the likelihood of asthma and respiratory allergies, the researchers report in the journal Pediatrics.

Among "sensitive" adolescents, the odds for hay fever were between 3.3- and 6.6-fold higher in those who swam in chlorinated pools for greater than 100 hours and the odds of allergic rhinitis were increased 2.2- to 3.5-fold among those who logged more than 1000 hours of chlorinated pool time.

For example, among children and teens who swam in chlorinated pools for 100-500 lifetime hours, 22 children out of 369 (6.0%) had current asthma, compared with those who had spent less than 100 hours (2 of 144, 1.8%). The proportions with asthma rose with longer exposure, to 14 out of 221 (6.4%) who had been swimming for 500-1000 hours, and 17 out of 143 (11.9%) who swam for more than 1000 hours.

The risk of asthma and allergy was not influenced by swimming in copper-silver sanitized pools and children without allergic tendencies were not at increased risk of developing allergies.

"The only plausible explanation" for these observations, the researchers argue, is that the chlorine-based toxic chemicals in the water or hovering in the air at the pool surface cause changes in the airway and promote the development of allergic diseases.

"It is probably not by chance," Bernard told Reuters Health, "that countries with the highest prevalence of asthma and respiratory allergies are also those where swimming pools are the most popular."

The current findings, he and colleagues conclude, "reinforce" the need for further study on the issue and to enforce regulations concerning the levels of these chemicals in water and air of swimming pools.

Do you have a problem with chlorinated pools?

 

 

 

 

Testimonials

 

"I have personally used CRYSTALITE for 12 months and it does just what it claims it can do........and more!"                                                

                                                                                      Richard Church -     Rivonia

"Against my better judgement I was persuaded to try CRYSTALITE for my seriously green pool. It really works. It`s amazing and so simple to use!" 

                             Richard Irwin  B.Com  LLB and LLM (Harvard) - Hyde Park resident  

" It cleaned my algae stained Pool just like that!"

                                                                            Lorna Trickey  -  Rivonia resident

"Our green pool cleaned within a day!"

                                                                                    Gerda van Graan  -  Rivonia

"Cleaned our horrible green pool!"

                                                                       Brenda Wallenda  - Fourways Gardens

"Although my pool was well, managed and clean, I switched from granular chlorine to CRYSTALITE and after 6 months I`m delighted at how absolutely `hassel free` it is and am enjoying the freedom!"

            Bob van Gemert Businessman and 20 years as Hardware/ pool chemical retailer

 


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