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

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

#51

Post by deepGem »

sizzzzlerz wrote: post #12

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.

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.

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

#52

Post by SCAQTony »

jhawk28 wrote: post #3
ravenstine wrote: post #2

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.

Some are saline (salt) based instead of chlorine.

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

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

#53

Post by braythwayt »

mc32 wrote: post #40
braythwayt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

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.

A HaHaOnlySerious joke is not meant to represent absolute truth, but to be truthful enough to provoke reflection on the subject.

In this case, I am suggesting that if you survey some large group of Canadians, and 58% admit to peeing in a pool, there is also some non-trivial number of Canadians surveyed who have peed in a pool, but will not admit it to you.

Maybe not 42%, but also maybe not 2%.

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

#55

Post by nostrademons »

keypusher wrote: post #47

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/

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.

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

#57

Post by porphyrogene »

keypusher wrote: post #47

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/

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.

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

#58

Post by gambiting »

deepGem wrote: post #51
sizzzzlerz wrote: post #12

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.

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.

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

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

#59

Post by gambiting »

tyingq wrote: post #54

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 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.

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

#60

Post by eesmith »

RandallBrown wrote: post #24
xiii1408 wrote: post #21

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."

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

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."

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