Super Eco

Photo credit: Lin Pernille Photography, flickr

Raise your hand if you cooled off in a swimming pool yesterday. Good. Now raise your pruney hand if you forgot your phone in your swimming trunks. Doh! No mo' bars in no mo' places. (Sorry, Steve. I just couldn't resist!)

But I digress. This post was supposed to be about detoxing your pool for the summer (and hopefully forever). You know, greening it up real nice and eco-squeaky clean like everything else these days, even lame nose hair trimmers.

So, let's try again. Okay, raise your hand if you swam yesterday and still stink like chlorine today. Me, too. Yep, we reek like potentially carcinogenic chlorine, a hair-frizzing, bleaching, disinfecting agent that's long been "implicated in the destruction of the ozone layer" and linked to childhood asthma. The stink of the stuff's a dead giveaway that you, my chlorinated friend, have been steeping in the wrong kind of pool. An environmentally-unfriendly one, like the rest of us have, for, well, forever. Who knew there was any other kind?

Even if you took a salty (and trendy) dip in a saline pool, your soggy paws should still go up. Why? Contrary to popular belief, salt water pools actually create caustic chlorine and loads of it. Tsk, tsk. Salt-to-chlorine pool systems also suck about 500 watts of electricity per month (for a 20,000 gallon pool). That's a lot of enviro suck-age all around.

But newer green pool technologies don't suck. Not totally. Most don't pound electricity, and require fewer to no toxic chemicals and far less algae cleanup. That means less green-guilt and more time to chill out for you. 

There's more good news. You can reform you for badly behaving pool with one or all of these these swimming 5 eco upgrades and retrofits:

1. Put a lid on it. Using a thermal pool cover keeps the heat in and (most) dirt and bugs out. Plus, your energy usage/heating bill will shrink and you'll spend less time scrubbing the deep end. (When I was growing up in New Hampshire, dozens of bullfrogs hopped a nightly pilgrimage from the pond down the street right into my in-ground pool. Guess who had a blast fishing them out?)

2. Sun your swim. Solar panels and low-tech solar water heating tube systems like my father hammered to our cabana roof in the 80s. If he'd known about this cool soda can solar DIY jimmy rig, he would've tried that, too. Aw, why not beer? Whatever works, not pollutes. Click over to Find Solar, to hook up with U.S. Dept. of Energy approved solar installers near you, and check out these tax incentives.

3. Go chem free with an ionization Ecosmartpool. Pool ionizer systems use copper electrodes and a low voltage DC current to slip copper ions into your pool water. Snazzy. Bonus: It's "completely safe for humans, but lethal to algae and bacteria." Don't sweat the copper. The amount left in the water is less than the EPA’s safe drinking standards and equivalent to that of a Flintstone's vitamin.

4. Pump light. Upgrade to an energy saving water pump and filtration system. They're expensive ($400 to $1,000), but the energy cost savings can really add up. Don't forget to set the timer.

5. Stop leaking. Leaks run pools dry of 102,000 gallons-plus of lost H20 every year, according to Earth 911. Our friends there suggest you "mark the water line with a grease pencil and check it 24 hours later. If you suspect a leak, have it fixed as soon as possible. Refilling a pool with captured rainwater is an excellent way to cut down on wasted water, and it doesn’t hurt to give that new border of irises and cattails a drink while you’re at it."

Come back soon for Part Two of this post, when I'll take you for a refreshing dip in something green and fast-growing that's actually good for your pool, your skin and the Earth.

For now, I'm off to the park, where city officials shut down the sprinkler I'd hoped to cool the kids off in. I'm not mad at them, though. They did it for a good reason: A severe statewide drought. Kind of makes me feel guilty about swimming at all. I'm such a wet towel.