Last year the Australian Federal government department who oversee the chemical industry and derive an income from chemical levies heralded their new guidelines for demonstrating the efficacy of swimming pool sanitisers. The pool industry embraced this as very responsible and a step in the right direction. However, on closer inspection of this APVMA initiative, it’s somewhat noticeable that the cost and time to perform the scientific testing is economically and practically impossible. These efficacy testing requirements form a barrier of entry for any new swimming pool sanitisers.
After examining the requirements more closely it was evident that pre-existing registered pool sanitisers have been allowed to by-pass the latest testing requirements, so we have to assume that the APVMA have adequate scientific data that proves these sanitisers are able to meet the efficacy requirements.
Based on this assumption, we requested on several occasions that the APVMA provide scientific data that demonstrates that existing registered pool sanitisers could meet the guidelines; however no data has been provided.
Digging deeper, the same question was asked under the Freedom of Information Act with the outcome being somewhat surprising.
View the official response from the APVMA.
In summary, the APVMA were unable to supply any scientific evidence to support the registration of registered sanitisers, as it simply doesn’t exist!
To our knowledge, there are no recent chlorine based scientific data reports available anywhere in the world apart from Enviroswim’s efficacy tests (from 2001) performed at a government NATA accredited lab.
The results of which indicated that chlorine FAILED the testing criteria. The kill rate required over a period of 30 seconds was not achievable or even over 15 minutes.
The test results highlight that the Enviroswim system was able to eliminate twice the number of bacteria in the same time frames.
View the results from the Government NATA Lab Tests:
The truth is chlorine is unable to meet or even come close to reaching the requirements set out by the government but while it’s a good chemical for commercial resale purposes the truth is being hidden and protected.
Refer to our eBook to view our history with Federal Government, specifically the APVMA.