The Competitive Enterprise Institute and other chlorine industry supporters say that banning chlorine would mean that millions of people in the third world would die from want of disinfected water:

Even more daunting, a chlorine phase-out would halt the production of most plastics, pesticides and chlorine-containing drugs.... From safe drinking water, clean swimming pools, pest-free crops, to flame retardants and food packaging, quality white paper and bright socks, Saran wrap, plastic bottles, garden hoses, window frames and sturdy plumbing pipes, the end of chlorine would spell the end of modern civilization itself. (Malkin and Fumento 1995)

This is also the line taken by a Chlorine Chemistry Council (1995) news release which used National Health Week to point out how "chlorine is an important contributor to public health protection and disease prevention....virtually eliminating waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhoid in the U.S." and used in 85 percent of drugs. And on the internet the Council explains how chlorine "works for the environment." Three examples are given: by enabling the production of materials for automobiles that make them lighter and therefore more fuel efficient; through "crop protection chemicals" (a euphemism for pesticides) that result in higher crop yields and therefore less pressure to convert rainforests for agriculture; and in purifying silicon for use in solar panel chips.

The Council claims "almost 40 percent of US jobs and income are in some way dependent on chlorine" and the Alliance for the Responsible Use of Chlorine Chemistry argues that "chlorine-related industries provide some five million jobs worldwide and direct capital investment in the hundreds of billions of dollars." The alliance therefore resolves to "undertake programs of education and advocacy regarding the responsible applications of chlorine chemistry."

A writer in the Texas Observer noted:

The CCC and its allies are quick to characterise any attempt to point out the connection between dioxin, organochlorines and chlorine production as part of a sinister campaign to 'ban chlorine' immediately, so that they can conjure up the catastrophic effects and costs of an abrupt elimination of chlorine—as if it were to happen overnight, without transition or alternatives. (King 1996)

Indeed the Council argues that chlorine is "irreplacable in our economy" and "it's hard to envision life without it." However, as well known environmental scientist Barry Commoner pointed out to a Citizen's Conference on Dioxin, chlorine-based products have permeated the modern world "not so much by creating new industries as by taking over existing forms of production... It grew through a virulent from of industrial imperialism." (Quoted in Mntague 1994) He suggests that there are and have been alternatives to these chemicals.

The chair of the International Joint Commission which had recommended a phasing out of the industrial use of chlorine, Gordon Durnil, a conservative Republican Bush appointee, wrote in his book The Making of a Conservative Environmentalist that the Commissioners had discussed how long a phase out would take, thinking that it might take 50 years. They were amazed when "Industry came to us and told us how stupid we were" for suggesting a phase out of chlorine because "finding a suitable alternative might take thirty years. Later they reduced that to twenty years." (Quoted in Montague 1996b)

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Chlorine Chemistry Council, 'Chlorine protects public health', EnviroScan (April 1995).

King, Michael, 1996, 'The Chemical Industry and the TNRCC Lay Siege to Texas Moms', The Texas Observer, 26 January.

Malkin, Michelle and Michael Fumento, 1995, Rachel's Folly: The End of Chlorine, CEI Environmental Studies Program (27 September).

Montague, Peter, 1996a, Chemical Industry Strategies, Part 1, Rachel's Hazardous Waste News, No. 495 (1996)

Montague, Peter, 1996b, Chemical Industry Strategies, Part 2, Rachel's Hazardous Waste News, No. 496.

Montague, Peter, 1994, Turning Point for the Chemical Industry, Rachel's Hazardous Waste News, No. 405.

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