Pee, Not Chlorine, Causes Red Eyes from Swimming Pools: CDC (2015)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/pee-chlorine-red-eyes-swimming-pools-cdc-1.3127865

by colinprince • 7 years ago

674 322 7 years ago

ravenstine2• 7 years ago

Why do pools still use chlorine? Is it just because it's really cheap? I've seen non-chlorine pool treatments advertised in the past but haven't been to a single pool in 20+ years that wasn't chlorinated.

http://www.baquacil.com/

EDIT: Also, ewww.

jhawk28• 7 years ago

Some are saline (salt) based instead of chlorine.

24gttghh3• 7 years ago

Which still produces chlorine[0]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_water_chlorination

Seawater salt is NaCl after all.

learc832• 7 years ago

Saltwater pools still use a chlorine generator so they aren't chlorine free.

nkozyra• 7 years ago

Which still results in chlorinated pools.

ISL• 7 years ago

Salt = NaCl.

SCAQTony• 7 years ago

Does chlorine hurt your eyes: "...22 April 1915 shortly after 17:00; French troops in the path of the gas cloud sustained about 6,000 casualties. Many died within ten minutes and others were blinded. Chlorine gas reacts with water to form hypochlorous acid, destroying moist tissue such as the lungs and eyes..."

Bromine, ozone, osmosis and of course chlorine are what makes pool water safe. Bromine is usually used in warmer pools, hot tubs and spas. It's weird to swim in for your lips taste salty. I seem to float better in bromine water but it is most likely my imagination.

Ozone or ozonated pools are so clean you can drink from them. the 2008 Beijing Olympic pool was ozonated. Caveat, in a public pool setting with lots of bodies and such an ozonated pool will need some chlorine to augment its safety.

Nature loves stagnant water, (as do mosquitoes) so filtration is very important. Osmosis is very good and as a result, you need less chlorine. The water in the Bahamas is so clear because of the sun radiating it and the circulation.

I am a swimmer and I blogged about the subject for years at the SCAQblog

Liquix• 7 years ago

It's just "the way it's done" in an aging industry without much incentive for innovation/change. Why risk time and money on a new chlorine-free product when 98% of your customers are happily paying for what you already stock?

nkingsy• 7 years ago

Bromine is basically the same thing, Ozone can cause respiratory issues. I haven't seen an alternative that was demonstrably better.

learc832• 7 years ago

That system uses peroxide which has other trade offs compared to chlorine. There is no magic bullet.

chomp• 7 years ago

I don't know how much that stuff costs, but chlorine is pretty cheap and easy to deal with. A bucket will last me almost 6 months and is like a hundred bucks. I shove some tablets into my chlorinator and it just works.

It's easy to find pool companies who know how to deal with chlorine, and there's a wealth of information online on dealing with a chlorine pool. None of that exists for esoteric pool treatments.

scott_s• 7 years ago

I was curious, did some googling, found a quora comment characterizing Baquacil as less effective, more expensive and not as scalable: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-they-put-chlorine-in-swimming-p...

JohnJamesRambo• 7 years ago

The favorite pool I have ever been in had bromine instead of chlorine. The water was so silky and velvety and didn't sting at all. Totally different experience.

It was in Hot Springs, Arkansas and the specific chemistry of the water there made it where they couldn't use chlorination due to interactions with the unique water there. I wish all pools were brominated.

It was in the neat pool on the side of a hill here-

https://tinyurl.com/yyq4k6tb.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/71854674

Unlike chloramines, bromamines are disinfectants with activity that rivals that of either free chlorine or free bromine. In addition, bromamines do not produce the noxious odors and associated eye and skin irritation attributed to chloramines.

https://www.poolspanews.com/facilities/maintenance/sanitatio...

saagarjha• 7 years ago

Bromine is more stable at higher temperatures, so that’s why it’s commonly used in places like hot tubs.

rlonstein• 7 years ago

When I had a swimming pool, I used borax (the same 20 Mule Team stuff sold along side clothes washing detergent) to adjust the ph with the added benefits that it suppressed algae, made for soft feeling water, and reduced my use of Chlorine tabs and shock. I did need a more complete test kit than the usual test strips or two dropper kit.

StrictDabbler• 7 years ago

They also brominate the water on all the Disney water rides, which is why Pirates of the Caribbean has such a distinct smell.

viburnum• 7 years ago

If you've ever been lucky enough to swim in a pool that's just been filled up, you know this is true.

teekert2• 7 years ago

"Approximately 58 per cent of Canadians admitted to peeing in the pool at least once in a recent survey of 9,500 people conducted by Travelocity." Never looking a Canadians the same ever again.

sizzzzlerz2• 7 years ago

And Canadians are supposed to be the polite ones.

teekert2• 7 years ago

OMG.

braythwayt2• 7 years ago

To paraphrase a HaHaOnlySerious joke about diving:

"There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who have peed in a pool. And those who lie about it."

mc32• 7 years ago

Everyone as a kid who has gone into a pool is probably right, but I doubt all adults who’ve been in a pool have done so.

djsumdog2• 7 years ago

I've never peed in a pool, or a shower for that matter. I have a hand-washing based obsessive compulsive disorder, which I'm sure is part of it.

Svoka• 7 years ago

Why the hell would you pee in the pool? I never did it, and really think those who do are disgusting and should not be allowed to use public pools.

jeletonskelly• 7 years ago

an the other 42% lied

lawnchair_larry• 7 years ago

This blows my mind. I’ve never considered doing this in a pool at any age and can’t believe anyone else would either. Yet half of the population apparently has, and they think everyone else does it too.

Retra2• 7 years ago

Just wait until you hear what's in the ocean!

bluedino• 7 years ago

we had a swim-up bar at our resort and plenty of alcoholic drinks were consumed over the course of a day, and not many bathroom breaks were taken

s4vi0r• 7 years ago

What's the harm in it? The amount of urine is negligible in relation to the water, and unless you're sick with a UTI or something urine is sterile anyways.

I don't get it the other way around - why do people freak out about it? I don't care one way or the other whatever or not people piss in the pool next to me - its like somebody splashing you with water in the middle of a rainstorm.

nabla9• 7 years ago

Finland had a serial pooper scare last year.

Serial pooper takes fourth dump in Oulu's Raksila swimming hall pool https://metropolitan.fi/entry/serial-pooper-takes-fourth-dum...

ptaipale• 7 years ago

I went to check if he was caught... and found out that there was another serial pooper in Haapavesi this January. (Ilta-Sanomat January 11).

I'm convinced also very many of terrorism crimes are simply copycats who want to see headlines.

hyperbovine• 7 years ago

A shall-remain-nameless friend worked summers as a lifeguard at the local YMCA as a teenager. Lifeguarding is a stressful, hot, long, low-paying job. Enthusiasm can wane, especially at the end of summer. As a favor to her fellow co-workers, said friend went ahead and shat the pool on her last day, mandating a 24-hr public health closure of the facility, and thus gifting everyone a free day off.

sneak• 7 years ago

The linked statistic asked “pool or ocean”. Peeing in the ocean is fine. When they quoted the statistic they shortened it to just pool; a misleading quote at best.

rconti• 7 years ago

42% of Canadians are liars? or just don't visit the pool often?

bregma• 7 years ago

The pool is frozen solid for half the year. You can pee on it if you want but it just sits there in a frozen yellow puddle on top until the spring thaw. It can be pretty incriminating.

Also it tends to dribble down your snowmobile pants and onto your mukluks.

chooseaname• 7 years ago

What? Everyone knows you're supposed to pee while standing under the shower before you get into the pool.

factcheck862• 7 years ago

Actually, this is a completely incorrect statement in the article. If you follow the link they show in the article, it brings you to an article about a survey that TravelZoo did and the question is: "Have you ever taken a tinkle in the ocean or a pool?" The OCEAN or the pool. This completely changes the question and so the 58% regarding 'peeing in a pool' is wrong (it could easily be that 99% of those people peed in the ocean and not a pool, which is very different). Plus it shows that 64% of Americans said "yes" to that question, so the American number is higher. This is what happens when articles just haphazardly brush over actual statistics and completely distort their meaning...

factcheck862• 7 years ago

Plus the CBC doesn't even get the source name right - it's TravelZoo not Travelocity... This is some shabby work. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/64-of-americans-pee-in-po_n_7...

sizzzzlerz2• 7 years ago

I've always wanted a product that you could add to the swimming pool water that reacts to human urine by coloring the water immediately surrounding the pee-er. Say a neon orange or red. Over time, the colored water gets diluted and disappears. Maybe pee-shaming is what's required to stop people from doing it.

strangemonad• 7 years ago

The quantity of urea would be to low unfortunately for any indicator compound. https://youtu.be/S32y9aYEzzo

eesmith4• 7 years ago

And Snopes, at https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/piscine-of-the-crime/ :

No matter what your parents might have told you, there isn’t any magical chemical that when added to a swimming pool will reveal the presence of urine in the water by producing a brightly-colored cloud:

thom• 7 years ago

I may be missing the joke here, but for many years swimming pools merely _claimed_ they had this, to discourage people.

cbsks2• 7 years ago

I distinctly remember hearing--and believing--that rumor when I was growing up. Now that I know it isn't true, I'm not afraid to pee in the pool ;)

LeonM• 7 years ago

My dad once told me that this was done when he was young (so I'd guess around late 60's / early 70's). He told me it wasn't received well by the public, as swimmers (especially young children and older people) can loose some urine by accident. The dye in the water would damage their confidence.

jules2• 7 years ago

Maybe they shouldn't be in the pool then.

michaelmrose8• 7 years ago

It was never done nor possible.

electriclove• 7 years ago

'Grown Ups' Blue Urine Clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbkNt48cvsg

trentlott• 7 years ago

I vaguely remember this being a plot point in an episode of 'The Adventures of Pete and Pete'†. I'm sure there are plenty of chemists that have valiantly attempted to find something that could both stay stable in UV-blasted chlorinated water and react with a weak acid to give an absorption in the visible wavelength. . .but that is a very long and hard-to-fulfill wishlist.

Anyway, it's just any sort of amine reacting with chlorine that produces the chloramines that irritate your eyes. Even if nobody urinated in the pool, the sweat people produce would still be able to cause it. Obviously it wouldn't deplete chlorine as quickly, but it isn't that irritation only comes from urine alone.

Further, I'm more worried by this: > "We have a new parasitic germ that has emerged that's immune to chlorine," says Beach. "We've got to keep it out of the pool in the first place. We need additional barriers." - Dr. M Beach, Associate Director at Healthy Water, CDC

† See here: https://youtu.be/xQOePM_ewVM?list=PLBwI3kpp6F3Kk0_jpewLabhLT...

djsumdog2• 7 years ago

I immediately though of that Pete and Pete episode too! I would imagine it would be difficult or impossible to find a chemical that would react with urine, but not sweat or other stuff coming off your body, that would be safe to swim in.

enraged_camel• 7 years ago

>Even if nobody urinated in the pool, the sweat people produce would still be able to cause it.

That's not an issue though, because it would still provide the benefit of showing you exactly how clean/dirty the water is.

disillusioned• 7 years ago

Pete & Pete continues to be one of those weirder shows that definitely messed me up from watching it as a kid. I seem to have some weird suppressed memory of a brain freeze episode as well. Weird stuff.

martin-adams• 7 years ago

While nice in theory, it'll be bad for business for public swimming pools. Think of how many young kids are in the pool (under 3 years of age). Whether you like it or not, there's pee in the pool.

illumin82• 7 years ago

Most pools require toddlers and infants to wear special swim diapers that provide some type of barrier to prevent pee (and worse) from getting in the water. Not that they're foolproof, but if you are swimming in a pool that doesn't require this, I would get out. There are some really nasty diseases that come from human waste that I would not want to come in contact with.

DigiMortal• 7 years ago

Have you ever seen the south park episode, "minorities in my water park?" lol

deepGem• 7 years ago

Gosh this is not gonna go well with the public. I know several kids who just can't hold pee in the pool. They'll just let it out. Also its not like the toilets are right there. You often have to get out of the pool, walk like 100 yards or down a flight of stairs. It's a PITA. Even Michael Phelps once said in an interview that very rarely competitive swimmers get out of the pool to pee.

gambiting3• 7 years ago

I'm constantly shocked and disgusted that people actually pee in pools and that it's not some joke someone made up somewhere.

olyjohn3• 7 years ago

Umm... that's why you pee before you get in the pool. 100 yards isn't that much to ask to avoid swimming around in your own, and other's piss. Those kids will be swimming around for hours exerting way more energy than the walk to the bathroom. FFS. This is why I don't swim in pools.

sehugg• 7 years ago

If you've ever been to a resort with a wet bar, you might see people drinking for several hours without getting out of the pool. One can draw conclusions.

michaelmrose8• 7 years ago

If said kids can't avoid peeing in the pool they shouldn't be in the pool or should be wearing diapers to avoid pissing all over fellow patrons.

The restrooms are rarely convenient in big box stores or the mall they are often a fair hike away but you don't see little Johnny hiking up his leg to pee on his fellow shoppers.

calebegg• 7 years ago

I was curious, so here's a source for the Michael Phelps tidbit:

https://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/08/06/breaking-news-fro...

Zimahl3• 7 years ago

Michael Phelps was fucking with whomever was interviewing him. I was a competitive swimmer and it's almost impossible to need to go pee while working out in a pool. Not only are you getting dehydrated by sweating profusely, you are getting dehydrated via osmosis.

amelius• 7 years ago

How bad is urine really, in the quantities found in a typical pool? Remember that doctors used to taste urine, to test for e.g. diabetes.

michaelmrose8• 7 years ago

Is this the justifications of a pool defiler?

matteuan• 7 years ago

even if the pool contained only urine, I don't think there would be any particular health hazard. Maybe if you drink too much of it, you could get some kind of salt poisoning, but then the same risks would occur when swimming in the sea.

kisstheblade• 7 years ago

Urine is sterile. That's why it's good to pee on wounds.

Edit: Wow, what harsh downmodding :) Yes I was wrong and learned something, isn't it still useful to keep my comment here for other's education? I literally heard this "urine is sterile" comment in the last couple of weeks. I stand corrected, thanks!

logfromblammo• 7 years ago

The problem is that the organic nitrogen in the urine reacts with the chlorine in the pool to form chloramine, which is more irritating to eyes and skin than what was in the pool before--probably hypochlorites (NaClO, Ca(ClO)2, or LiClO) with cyanuric acid UV-stabilizer--and less effective at killing bacteria.

By peeing in the pool, you are using up the sterilization capacity already present in the water. The water quality manager then has to increase the rate of chlorination far past what is strictly necessary for bacteria, sweat, skin dust, and sunblock, to account for all the pool-pissers. With over-chlorination and a good particulate filter, some amount of pee in the pool can be absorbed by the system. But if you have the capability to exit the pool and pee in a toilet, that is the civilized and courteous thing to do.

If you recognize NaClO above, you might also know it as bleach. And you might also know that it is very dangerous to mix ammonia with bleach, because it forms respiratory irritants like chloramines and cyanogen chloride. The same types of reactions can occur with the urea in urine.

Also, urine can fertilize algae growth in the pool and screw up your pool pH.

barkingcat• 7 years ago

I support this but don't let the colour disappear. So that you know that you're getting into a pee pool or not.

partiallypro• 7 years ago

That would be wildly expensive as it would require you to drain the entire pool afterwards.

snuxoll• 7 years ago

Many of the detectible compounds found in human urine are also in another excretion our body makes: sweat.

00N82• 7 years ago

we allegedly had just such a product in use in my high school swim class

it was almost certainly fictional, but it still might've worked

kgwxd• 7 years ago

I would think anyone running a pool open to the public wouldn't use it, it would require them to drain the pool every time a baby pees in their swim diaper. And if it became law, there'd just be no public pools.

ajakate• 7 years ago

I played club water polo when I was college. We would have tournaments at neighboring universities and we once visited a pool that was apparently sanitized with bromine instead of chlorine (The bromine pools had a much saltier taste). We were warming up for a game and someone noticed that peeing in the pool actually turned the water green, and we all started doing it. The lifeguard saw us all huddled by the edge and asked us to stop.

kerbalspacepro• 7 years ago

Why on earth would you pee in the pool to begin with?

swebs• 7 years ago

I love this story.

trumped2• 7 years ago

have the kids drink a 1/8 of a cup of pool water when they get out (just kidding)

dpcan• 7 years ago

Kids today would do it just to see the colored circles.

EDIT: Come to think of it... kids from my day tried it because they heard that's what it would do. So. Doesn't matter. Wouldn't help. People are still peeing in the pool. I, personally, cannot fathom doing such a thing. Who is okay peeing in a pool other people are using? Who?

dleslie• 7 years ago

And this is why I prefer pools that are athletic-focused, rather than pools that are entertainment-focused. They really ought to be considered as separate facilities.

_i____ii_______• 7 years ago

https://youtu.be/0iKAyfaPqKM

misterman0• 7 years ago

And now YT thinks I'm into pee clips. Thx!

clarkevans2• 7 years ago

There exist more articulate writings on this subject. Chloramines are formed when urea (pee and sweat) meets chlorine [1,2]. It contributes to athlete asthma [3,4,5,6,7]. It is an identified occupational health issue [8]. Chloramines are a concern with aquatic facility operation [9,10]. One way to help is to use UV filtering [11,12]. I believe the solution is just better aquatic center ventilation [13] especially moving air across the water surface [14].

[1] https://nextgws.com/chloramine-simplified-chemistry-lesson/ [2] https://chlorine.americanchemistry.com/Science-Center/Chlori... [3] https://www.webmd.com/asthma/news/20040611/chlorine-pools-br... [4] https://lungdiseasenews.com/2015/04/07/competitive-swimming-... [5] http://www.jiaci.org/issues/vol21issue3/12.pdf [6] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-asthma-swimmers-id... [7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4351252/ [8] https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/29/4/690 [9] https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/swimming/aquatics-professio... [10] https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/park-ridge/sports/ct-... [11] https://www.poolspanews.com/facilities/maintenance/technical... [12] http://halmapr.com/news/hanovia/2008/07/26/uv-chloramine-red... [13] http://aquaticnews.com/2018/04/17/indoor-pool-air-quality-th... [14] http://paddockevacuator.com/

Disclaimer: I've got no relation or interest in Paddock (the 1st and last 2 links), I just happen to be a swim coach.

xiii14082• 7 years ago

This has been well-known by swimmers for a long time: chlorine itself is pretty much fine for you. It's the chemical reaction of chlorine with waste products, including human waste, that produces toxic byproducts and the concomitant "pool smell."

If you swim in a well-maintained pool (e.g. one of my university's competition swimming pools), there's no "pool smell."

RandallBrown• 7 years ago

The scent of bleach and the scent of "pool smell" are almost exactly the same to me.

SteveGregory• 7 years ago

That is because both are the same thing: sodium hypochlorite

eesmith4• 7 years ago

strangemonad elsewhere here posted a link to a video evaluating the question of how much pee there is in pools, using the excretion of an artificial sweetener - which is only in urine and not, like urea, also in sweat - as the indicator.

The presenter is also dubious about the origin of the smell, and thinks that it comes from the chlorine, not the trichloramine product of chlorine interacting with urea. So he tests it out by mixing pool chlorine into two buckets, putting urine in one of them, covering for a few days, and smelling.

That experiment is run starting at https://youtu.be/S32y9aYEzzo?t=284 . The chlorinated water, even at 4x concentration, "smells just like water." While the one where urine was added "smells like a pool."

jedberg2• 7 years ago

Are you sure your University isn't using bromine instead of chlorine? Bromine is more expensive but then you don't get the "pool smell". It's what they use at Disney parks.

tsmarsh2• 7 years ago

You do get that boron smell though. Kinda dirty smelling.

selectodude• 7 years ago

I think you're thinking of bromine, not boron.

Domenic_S2• 7 years ago

A well-maintained & chemically balanced pool should not smell under typical circumstances.

I owned a 40,000 gallon in-ground pool and followed a method called the "Trouble-Free Pool method". The only chemical requirements are normal bleach (chlorine) and a pH adjuster. No "shock", no algaecide, no pool store shenanigans. My pool was pristine & sparkling blue, and never smelled or hurt guests' eyes or turned blonde hair green. My family (including two small children) could swim all day long and never have irritated eyes.

It's really about being very careful about the chemistry (step 1 is to get a high-quality testing kit). Public pools are... less than fastidious about chemical balance and standards are much looser.

thaumasiotes• 7 years ago

chlorine itself is pretty much fine for you

It's difficult to imagine a context that would make this sentence reasonable. Chlorine is a light halogen. It's fine if it's bound to something stable, like in salt. It certainly isn't fine by itself. It's literally one step up from fluorine, the most horrifying substance known to man.

The safety diamond for chlorine rates it a 4 for health: "Very short exposure could cause death or major residual injury".

0xdeadb00f• 7 years ago

Not to mention the fact that elemental Chlorine gas is incredibly poisonous and was used in WW1 (the first gaseous chemical weapon according to Wikipedia).

black-tea2• 7 years ago

One step from being fluorine? That's a nuclear reaction. Elements can't change during chemical reactions.

dragonwriter8• 7 years ago

chlorine itself is pretty much fine for you.

That's...not why it was used in warfare.

wuschel• 7 years ago

If my memory serves me well, it is not chlorine, but the product from hypochloric acid[1] and urea/urea-derivatives that that make eyes hurt. Although, I don't know if they use Cl2 as reagent here.

[1] Hypochloric acid is generated in a disproportionation reaction: Cl2 + H2o --> HCl + HOCl

ham_sandwich3• 7 years ago

As a longtime swimmer and water polo player, my eyes have been absolutely wrecked by harsh pools many, many times.

However, I don’t think it’s pee. First off, every swimmer pees in the pool.

I have been a part of tens of thousands of man-hours in the pool and seen people get out to pee maybe three times.

I have been in the first games of the day at water polo tournaments and have seen them chlorine shock the water followed by everyone’s eyes getting decimated. To me, the devil is unbalanced chlorine coupled with the thick, thick film of sunscreen that develops in the water after a scorching day with hundreds of people jumping in and out.

You get desperate when your eyes get that destroyed. The classic trick is to fill a pair of goggles with milk and just put ‘em on for a few minutes.

crescentfresh• 7 years ago

First off, every swimmer pees in the pool

A friend expressed this to me once when I caught her peeing in the pool and I was honestly skeptical that "everyone does it" as I would have never felt comfortable doing that. Still don't.

superkuh• 7 years ago

Yup. It's pretty crazy (and gross) that people think this. People don't have any trouble urinating in the proper place in other contexts.

barbecue_sauce• 7 years ago

I don't do it, but I also don't really care if other people do.

ham_sandwich3• 7 years ago

When you’re in the water that much, I think you just end up getting desensitized to it.

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Teammates going to a corner and openly declaring “don’t come over here I’m peeing.” Coaches literally encouraging it, saying it’s not worth it to get out and miss a set when you can stay in the water: “your urine is just a tiny, minuscule fraction of the total volume anyways”

When you spend that much time in the water with your teammates, it’s no longer an “open secret” that eveyone is doing it. It’s simply open.

matthewowen• 7 years ago

Were you swimming in the pool, or are you a swimmer?

I think that what OP means is "every person who swims competitively pees in the pool during workouts", not "every person who ever goes in a pool pees in the pool".

synaesthesisx• 7 years ago

Alternatively, just wear goggles while underwater? My eyes get easily irritated swimming as well but goggles are a godsend.

lotophage2• 7 years ago

First off, every swimmer pees in the pool

Straight up lie. I've swum for two decades and never pissed in a pool. Losing 30-60secs from a set to go take a piss is nothing. In Australia at least, pissing in the pool is considered repulsive. I don't doubt that some people piss in the pool, but I've never been in a squad and felt a "warm patch". If that did happen, others would notice and the person would be socially ostracised.

ham_sandwich3• 7 years ago

I think it is possible for that culture to exist on teams if it’s instilled by the coach. I have been on teams with more disciplined, formal coaches and people certainly weren’t as open about it. It would probably be frowned upon if brought up.

But I’ve also been on teams with more free-wheeling coaches and that attitude—ahem—trickled down to the rest of the team. And people would openly talk about it and just straight up do it.

Zimahl3• 7 years ago

I don't know why you are getting downvoted, but I swam and played water polo in the US and we don't have a culture of 'just pee in the pool'. I don't remember a single instance of someone announcing peeing in the pool, let alone it being acceptable.

yesenadam2• 7 years ago

Straight up lie.

I think you meant just that it's not true. (Lying is where people say something they don't believe is true, attempting to deceive others.) I bother mentioning this because groundless accusations of lying seem to me to break the 'assume good faith' guideline.

1e1f• 7 years ago

"People who swim while they have diarrhea and unleash even very tiny amounts of germs like Cryptosporidium (or 'crypto' for short)"

howard941• 7 years ago

"are evil"

quickthrower22• 7 years ago

“are shitbags”

peter_retief• 7 years ago

Damn

keypusher• 7 years ago

Chlorine reacts with pretty much any organic compound (hair, sweat, skin, urine) to produce chloramine. And yes, while this is the thing that irritates your eyes, it's not to say that chlorine is harmless either. There is evidence for respiratory and organ damage from extended exposure to chlorinated pools.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4351252/

nostrademons• 7 years ago

There's plenty of organic compounds within our respiratory tracts and other mucus membranes, so it would make sense that if chlorine gets in there, regardless of whether there's already chloramine in the environment, there soon will be.

porphyrogene• 7 years ago

This may be the same issue as is seen in crop pesticides. The practitioners don’t trust the science and try to play it safe by adding more than is advised.

xkcd-sucks• 7 years ago

So basically, if chlorine isn't generating chloramine, then the chlorine is useless to begin with

dangerbird2• 7 years ago

Yes, which is why it's important to regularly "shock" the pool to oxidize the chloramines, typically by superchlorinating the pool, but much more effectively by adding ozone.

clarkevans2• 7 years ago

Be it airborne chlorine or chlormines, it is an air-quality challenge. Facilities need to take pool ventilation seriously, especially ways to draw fresh air across the water surface where chloramines tend to linger (they are heavy). However, getting facilities to upgrade their ventilation is hard: it is a substantial cost and there are very little health and occupational safety regulations. Standard pool inspections do not check air quality; and air-quality inspections are time consuming (4h+) and expensive (>1K). At a societal level, we need to be putting patron and staff pressure on facilities that have ventilation problems and letting others now about these health issues.

frandroid• 7 years ago

Not to mention that good air ventilation close to the pool's surface has the side effect of accelerating evaporation and thus cooling the water, requiring more energy to keep the temperature up...

eloff• 7 years ago

So safer to use outdoor pools if that's an option.

microcolonel• 7 years ago

UVC sterilizers seem like another option I think, not sure how effective that is though, and I'm not sure of the availability of things like this.

StavrosK• 7 years ago

Also, chloramine is what gives a pool that "pool smell".

amluto• 7 years ago

That study seems dubious -- they mention that they measured free chlorine with a DPD test, and they also say that they measured chloramines with a colorimeter and the DPD test. This seems quite odd -- the distinguish between free and combined chlorine (which mostly means chloramines), a better test such as FAS-DPD should be used. So I don't see how the study determined what the cause of the problem was, but it certainly spends quite a bit of time explaining how chloramines can be problematic.

Anyway, chloramines can be controlled to some degree. The use of stabilizers (cyanuric acid) can reduce the amount of nitrogen trichloride (the worst chloramine) in the water by a considerable amount. As I understand it, the factors that make the biggest difference, though, are maintaining adequate chlorination and exposure to UV light. UV light (from the sun or a UV lamp) breaks down chloramines. So the best solution is to swim in an outdoor pool :)

(The FAS-DPD test is a standard test kit you can buy from ay reputable dealer. It's a titration, not a colorimetric measurement, so no fancy equipment at all is needed.)

Zenst• 7 years ago

Makes you wonder about outdoor swimming pools (which would equally include water parks) that use chlorine. Given UV breaks it down, it would explain why outdoor pools that use chlorine, tend to have higher levels to counter the increased loss.

Which makes you wonder about exposure, whilst out in the open, the levels of chlorine gas given off would be higher. So a sunny calm day, may well be the case of higher exposure levels than a shaded indoor pool. Equally indoor pools that are exposed to UV sources would theoretically be the worst offenders in chlorine exposure.

darkpuma• 7 years ago

I submit that on sunny calm days with no wind at all, an outdoor pool will still get more air ventilation than the vast majority of indoor pools because, despite the absence of wind, you'll still get convection currents in the immediate area of the pool (particularly because the deck will usually get quite hot as it bakes in the sun.)

xiii14082• 7 years ago

"Unfortunately, one of the rats accidentally drowned during swimming training; therefore, the final animal number of the [experimental group] was 17."

Damn, poor guy.

"When training, a screw nut approximately 3% of their mean body weight was tied to the top end of the tail of each rat, and all rats were kept in the special pools with water of 60 cm depth (water temperature 25–30°C, pH 6.5–7.0) until fatigued (submerged below the surface for five seconds twice). The fatigued rats ceased training immediately, were removed from the water for a short break, showered with running water and then dried with hair dryers."

So, systematically drowning rats until they aspirate water, every day for twelve weeks. And they showed negative respiratory effects. Huh.

adrianN• 7 years ago

They had a control group that also had the training.

svrtknst• 7 years ago

systematically drowning rats until they aspirate water

We prefer the term "advanced interrogation techniques"

Pristina3• 7 years ago

This gives me an idea of an online gambling site where people bet crypto on which rat will drown first. I will call it thunderpool. 2 rats enter, 1 rat leaves.

tyingq3• 7 years ago

So how much water do you need before it's socially acceptable? I pee in the lake. What about a large pond or a really huge pool in a water park?

gambiting3• 7 years ago

I feel like in the lake or a natural pond there's plenty of bacteria who will be more than happy to eat it up. In a pool you specifically kill all the bacteria, so you forever swim in a soup of chemicals and urine until the water is replaced.

ams61102• 7 years ago

Or the other way to look at it, is that there's so much bacteria, algae, rotting plant and animal matter, bird shit, fish shit, etc. in lake and pond water that a little human urine won't appreciably add to the risk of swimming in it.

chosenbreed37• 7 years ago

So how much water do you need before it's socially acceptable? I pee in the lake. What about a large pond or a really huge pool in a water park?

I'm wondering if swimming in open water would be better apart from the salt of course

jschwartzi2• 7 years ago

I've always been told not to urinate or defecate within 100 feet of water sources in the backcountry because if everyone does it it builds up and then the water is unsafe to drink even when filtered.

The 6 micron filters used to filter giardia from the water will not filter viruses, which are present in your feces.

Please stop doing this.

ams61102• 7 years ago

Do you think all the animals that use these water sources follow the same rules?

tyingq3• 7 years ago

"Please stop doing this."

I didn't say I was crapping in the lake. Is urine in a lake a serious risk?

mcny• 7 years ago

Anecdotal but I was at a hotel on a weekday. Nobody else had been in the pool all day as far as I know when I jumped in the pool. Still got slightly red eyes.

Kenji• 7 years ago

This is bullshit. I get red eyes and inflammation from swimming in the chlorinated pool in our backyard if I keep my eyes open under water, and I know for a fact that nobody pees in there, unless evil goblins sneak into our backyard to relieve themselves.

kfwhp• 7 years ago

This is the reason I never go to pools. You're basically swimming in a solution of pee, sweat, vaginal fluids, and God knows what else.

tapanjk2• 7 years ago

The only solution is to pee in the pool, then at least you think it's your own.........

This caught my eye in the comments at the bottom of the article. It answers the question that we all asked (sometimes of ourselves): Why would anyone pee in the pool?

g051051• 7 years ago

I've been in pools that I'm 100% certain no one had peed in, and still got red eyes.

I'm certain because I was the only one who swam in it (a backyard pool) and I know I never did.

cm20122• 7 years ago

I think based on the article it's because of your sweat mingling with the chlorine.

chaoticmass• 7 years ago

Me: I'm allergic to cats.

Cat Owner: It's actually the cat saliva you're allergic to.

Me: facepalm

Stevvo• 7 years ago

Probably peed in by wildlife

ghostbrainalpha• 7 years ago

Ambient pee if you will. Or background pee from the hose used to fill the pool.

tapanjk2• 7 years ago

Same experience but in a hotel swimming pool with continuous recycling. After sitting next to the pool for an hour or more, with no one in the pool, I would dive in and find the chlorine too high and end up with eyes red.

ryanmarsh• 7 years ago

Umm, pool owner here. This is horseshit.

Come over and I will drain my pool, fill it up with fresh water, stabilize the chemistry and give it just a bit too much chlorine and lets see if your eyes don’t get red.

Domenic_S2• 7 years ago

Former pool owner here, for reasonable values of "just a bit too much" they won't get red. Eye irritation is a function of pH and unfiltered particulates.

Check out the Trouble Free Pool forum, you might save some money and learn some stuff!

Zimahl3• 7 years ago

That was his point. Public swimming pools crank up the chlorine to counteract the number of people using them.

alexhultman• 7 years ago

I've been a swimmer for 15 years and I had to get used to floating boogers and used band aids and I can just imagine how much dingleberry I have swallowed over time!

yalogin• 7 years ago

So if the eyes turn red in the pool does it mean there isn't enough Chlorine in it?

raverbashing• 7 years ago

I wonder if there is a technically feasible (and cheap) way of eliminating those substances from the water (apart from the obvious "cycling it" way)

danielpal• 7 years ago

another shocker. The smell of "Chlorine" in the pools is not caused by "chlorine" but by the urine. Chlorine has no smell when mixed with water. Add urine, and you get the "Chlorine" smell thats typical of pools.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S32y9aYEzzo&t=607s&frags=pl%...

https://chlorine.americanchemistry.com/Science-Center/Chlori...

wildmusings• 7 years ago

Kind of a deceptive video, which might make you think that if no one peed in the pool, there would be no pool smell. Urea is what reacts to create trichloramine, which gives off the smell. But urea, as the video acknowledges, also comes from sweat. Yet they go on to talk about chlorine reacting with urine as being the sole cause of the smell.

They should have gone into what percent of the urea comes from sweat vs. urine.

sriku• 7 years ago

A colleague and friend of mine once commented that having open designated smoking areas is like having a designated peeing area in a swimming pool.

Simulacra• 7 years ago

Oh. Well, sorry guys...

saluki• 7 years ago

My Great Aunt is in hospice care at home, I was talking with her yesterday about a sign she had by her pool when I was growing up.

Welcome to my OOL notice there is no P in it and I'd like to keep it that way.

YeahSureWhyNot• 7 years ago

i get red eyes even from my shower, unless there is pee in the water pouring from the shower head, I dont know what to say.

deckar01• 7 years ago

The lack of salt in tap water is likely the cause of eye irritation and redness. The concentration of salt in tap water about 2% of human tears. The concentration in chlorinated pool water is closer to 30% of human tears. Perfectly clean and balanced pool water should be less of an irritant than tap water.

https://www.aao.org/eye-health/ask-ophthalmologist-q/is-it-o...

https://blog.hayward-pool.com/maintenance/how-much-salt-do-y...

quickthrower22• 7 years ago

If a salt chlorinator is in use then yes salt will tend to be added.

kowdermeister• 7 years ago

Mark Rober (glitter bomb) did a video on this. He also did a test on the "pool smell" if it really caused by pee reacting with chlorine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S32y9aYEzzo

justtopost2• 7 years ago

Not sure I can trust anything from that dude. He realy did a number on his credibility by not making the glitter bombs, faking the 'prank', and lying about it afterward after being presented with clear evidince of his deception, and his pre-existing knowledge of it. No thanks, people who sell their credibility for views deserve no respect.

mchannon2• 7 years ago

This article's full of problems.

The first reason chloramine gets to be a problem is users don't shower before entering the pool. The amount of urine a swimmer can introduce into the water is small compared to the amount of urea coming off their unwashed body. Icelandic people religiously shower before entering their shared baths, and look on non-showering the way we might look at people not bothering to wiping their backside.

And the other two big misconceptions are that time will take care of the problem (chlorine evaporates, amines don't) and that you can just dump in chlorine or other chemicals to get rid of the problem. It uses far less energy and wastes less water to simply dump and replace the pool water (chlorine tablets require ridiculous amounts of water and energy in their manufacture).

angry_octet3• 7 years ago

Pool shock (a spike in active chlorine) will react with amines and oxidise them -- saying they don't work is bizarre. It is painful to do manually though. A UV filtration system is far easier, but also far more expensive.

Dumping water isn't practical as many places have water restrictions. Chlorine gas is produced in vast quantities industrially, then compounds like calcium chloride, sodium hypochlorite and sodium dichloroisocyanurate, which are used in both fresh water and waste water treatment. So when you dump your pool water you are still using chlorination, just at the municipal level.

mchannon2• 7 years ago

"saying they don't work is bizarre"- that it doesn't work is pretty much exactly what the article says, and it's true, as long as "work" is defined as not turning your eyes red.

Shock is useful for raising the total chlorine concentration in the pool, which is useful for discouraging bacteria, but it'll boil off in a day. If you have more amines to tie up chlorine than you add chlorine, bacteria and algae grow because the shock doesn't become "free chlorine".

UV light removes chlorine from the pool, but similarly does little to remove amines.

Dumping the water in a pool uses an equivalent amount of water to watering a similarly sized lawn over the course of as little as a few months. It's not free, but it distorts the overall scale of usage to bring up water restrictions.

A fresh fill of pool water has no amines in it, and consumes very little chlorine at the municipal level (which boils off quickly). Just because something is "produced in vast quantities industrially" doesn't make it cheaper than water. It's not. Hypochlorite tablets and shock are, like aluminum, essentially solid electricity.

PeterisP• 7 years ago

"The amount of urine a swimmer can introduce into the water is small compared to the amount of urea coming off their unwashed body" - really? how much urea does a normal human have on their body, assumed they wash at all e.g. if they showered this morning, and go to pool after work ? Assuming they don't spend the day pissing on themselves, do we just secrete urea?

jmcphers• 7 years ago

Yes, we do (a little bit).

Uric acid and urea in human sweat: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12817713

paulddraper• 7 years ago

Also remember the number of people getting in the pool is likely much larger then the number of people peeing in it.

wurst_case• 7 years ago

users Tee-hee

hudibras• 7 years ago

The article does mention several times that people should shower before using the pool, in addition to not urinating in the water.

ivanhoe• 7 years ago

They talk about dichloramine and trichloramine which are the products of chlorine reaction with ammonia, but also any amino acid - which means it can come as well from reactions with any part of our body it gets in contact with, like almost 2 sq. meters of our skin. How did they rule out all those other sources?

anonytrary2• 7 years ago

I've always avoided swimming because of this. Other people, who may not wipe their bottoms properly, are getting into the same pool as you. Sometimes they pee (and they always excrete saliva) into the pool. It kind of grosses me out, and I've never really understood why it's not more taboo.

In elementary school, I was never a fan of the game "bobbing for apples", because all of the other kids stick their mouths into the same bucket, and I had a basic conceptual understanding of germs and how they spread.

hire_charts• 7 years ago

On the other hand, what better way to give your immune system a head start?

anonytrary2• 7 years ago

Not washing your hands 20 times a day or profusely applying hand sanitizer is something to avoid. Doesn't mean you should be seeking out bacteria, though.

tj-teej2• 7 years ago

I see a lot of comments in these threads regarding the old idea of a red cloud to indicate someone has peed in the pool. This idea never dies and I think I know where it started...

When I was a lifeguard, we had to test the pH levels of the pool water every few hours. This entailed taking a sample of water, adding a few drops from a dropper and noting the shade of red the sample turned.

We would tell the kids that we were checking that the "pee detector" was working. I really think this is what has fueled the notion that it's possible to turn pool water red to catch pool pee-ers.

PS - I cannot recommend a summer job lifeguarding to anyone teenager, it was honestly one of the best jobs I ever had.

jjeaff• 7 years ago

I've always heard it was blue. And have seen movie scenes with blue as well.

trumped2• 7 years ago

who doesn't want blue pool water?

agrippanux• 7 years ago

I think you mean "I can recommend a summer job lifeguarding" :)

I also was a lifeguard all during high school, and if it was financially viable at this stage in my life I would do it again.

tj-teej2• 7 years ago

You are very correct! Unfortunately it's too late to edit now..

jillesvangurp• 7 years ago

I just came back from a swim. Accidentally swallowed a bit as well (it happens, never pleasant). I do use goggles to protect my eyes. Overall it's a good work out but the chlorine is definitely unpleasant.

I've encountered a few pools in Denmark that use salt water rather than chlorine. Much more pleasant to swim in and seems to have the same effect of killing off bacteria. Seems like a nice alternative. Refreshing the water more often is probably costly but could work as well. The pool I go to is always very busy and I suspect they are cutting corners on refreshing the water regularly.

angry_octet3• 7 years ago

'Salt water' pools are still using chlorine, just via a continuous process that maintains the right level of chlorine (splitting the salt: NaCl). Much easier to maintain. If the system has a super chlorination function (periodically gives a burst of increased chlorine, e.g. overnight) you don't have to shock the pool very often.

Big municipal pools have continous chemistry monitoring so they can achieve the same effect with less electricity. They can also increase the flow rate when there are more people etc.

bcaulfield• 7 years ago

Oh no. Oh no no no.

elyobo• 7 years ago

Off topic, so feel free to downvote, but I have a possibly related question that may find some answers here.

I generally have a dry scalp, and dry skin around eye brows and beard. I started swimming about five months back and these drastically improved. I cracked a couple of ribs in a cycling accident and had to stop... the problems returned. Back swimming again now and they're gone again.

The only info I can find online is of people complaining that pool swimming _causes_ dry scalp problems but I seem to be experiencing the opposite.

Any reasons why this might be the case?

vorpalhex• 7 years ago

ph?

wfbarks• 7 years ago

Already knew this thanks to Mark Rober!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S32y9aYEzzo

bArray• 7 years ago

Wasn't the pool closed due to aids?

Memes aside, it certainly shows how it's easy to draw an incorrect conclusion. It really makes me second guess how healthy swimming in a pool really is. Lots of people jumping in and out of the same water is an problem waiting to happen.

As children we used to swim and kayak in the sea (to the point where we could no longer see the coast, which in hindsight was very dangerous). I wonder how being in the sea compares to a pool?

jsilence• 7 years ago

Your pools are still being sanitized with chlorine?

The fact that the 'chlorine' smell stems from urine in the pool is news to you?

This has been common knowledge for decades now and most of the public pools here in Germany have been retrofitted to O2 base sanitization to eliminate the chlorine.

So all the authorities actually do about it is print a warning on paper?

This is odd.

black-tea2• 7 years ago

Why "pee"? The word is urine.

crusso• 7 years ago

I'm not sold. We had a pool when I was growing up and since I was the youngest child, there was a several year stretch in high school where I was taking care of the chemicals in the pool and really the only person ever swimming in it.

If the pool was looking a little green, I dumped some chlorine in and guess what, the increased chlorine created increased irritation to my eyes. And no, I wasn't the kind to pee in my own pool - not that the amount of pee I could generate would cause the requisite chlorine-pee interaction that makes the pool such an irritant.

reilly3000• 7 years ago

Our species has weathered all kinds of terrible waterborne communicable diseases since time began. It’s fair to say we wouldn’t cover the earth as we do without our sophisticated biome being adapted to all manner of disease from shared bathing.

Pee, Not Chlorine, Causes Red Eyes from Swimming Pools: CDC (2015)

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