This page provides an introduction to stratospheric ozone. It can also cause corrosion in rubber and other materials. It is however, one of the best sterlizers we know of.
Ozone is used as an oxidant to remove harmful bacteria and bad odors from food and water.
Way up in the sky ozone is a useful gas that keeps harmful radiation from space from reaching us at the surface. Without it up there, skin cancers and radiation burns would greatly increase and many plants would die. M uch of the ozone near the Earth's surface is the result of photochemical reactions . When the air near the surface is stable then the ozone can't rise up from the surface and the concentrations keep getting worse. This is most common in the summer when the sun is most intense and there often are long periods of atmospheric stability.