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

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291–300 of 353 posts

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

#291

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…

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 d…

"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.

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

#292

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…

"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?

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

#293

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.

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…

I love this story.

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

#294
post #102
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Uh, I hate to break it to you, but unless you swim in a dead body of water, there are worse things than human urine and feces in the water...

Yeah, don't care. The mental image of 1000 kids peeing in the pool, and the same water being in it for months on end grosses me out to no end.

I also honestly can't imagine what is worse than human piss and shit. Maybe those leeches that swim up your dickhole? I don't think there are any of those around here. I'm genuinely curious what is worse...

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

#295

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…

"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?

Yes, we do (a little bit).

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

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

#296

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…

"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?

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

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

#297

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…

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

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

#298

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…

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.

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

#299

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/

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…

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...

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

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how exactly do you propose telling a 1 or 2 year old not to poop in a pool?

Children who do not have proper bowel control yet are out of place in the public pool. Why should people have to put up with someone else's faeces? It's not hygienic.

You’ve been swimming in pools your entire life. Somehow you are still alive. Maybe it is way less of a deal than it actually seems.
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