Posted on 08/14/2019 2:03:12 PM PDT by SamAdams76
If you pee in the pool, it’ll go blue! There’s a special dye in there, designed to detect urine, and it’ll billow around you in a big, embarrassing, pissy cloud, and everyone will know you’ve done it, and you’ll be hounded out of town as a known pool-piddler.
Everybody knows that, right?
Except it isn’t true. It doesn’t even stand up to any scrutiny as an idea — what chemical specifically detects wee-wee? Would something that would react that dramatically to a dribble of micturition be safe to swim in? And if it happened, and someone was suddenly surrounded by a cerulean aura of widdly-woo, what would the protocol be for lifeguards, pool staff and fellow swimmers? If a pool had to be evacuated every time someone leaked in it, nobody would have ever completed a length. Plus, what would happen next — would they pour in an anti-piss substance that returned it to normal? Would they drain the pool and refill it with untainted water? (Answer: Highly unlikely).
Despite being clearly nonsense, it still persists as an idea. “I’ve heard many people suggest that there’s a chemical that will react with urine to turn a certain color,” says environmental engineer Ernest R. “Chip” Blatchley III of Purdue University, who has spent a lot of his career studying the chemistry of swimming pools, and has become the media’s go-to figure when discussing people relieving themselves in the shallow end. “But as far as I can tell, it’s a myth. I’m not aware of any chemical that’s added to pools for this purpose.”
“I think everyone who works in the pool trade has been asked about it,” agrees Sue Pace of H2O Swimming Pools Ltd. “But unfortunately, it’s a complete myth.”
It isn’t just limited to word-of-mouth, either – it’s shown up on the big screen, most notably in Adam Sandler’s 2010 film Grown Ups, in which Kevin James’ character Eric “makes a sissy” in the pool at a theme park. (I reached out to the production company, Happy Madison, for some background on what inspired Sandler and co-screenwriter Fred Wolf to include the dye, but didn’t hear back.)
Swimming pools are obviously filled with urine. As Blatchley previously confirmed to NPR, “I think you can assume that if people are using your pool, they’re peeing in it.” Swimmer Michael Phelps, the most successful Olympian of all time, once admitted to Ryan Seacrest, “Everybody pees in the pool. It’s kind of a normal thing to do for swimmers. When we’re in the water for two hours, we don’t really get out to pee.” A study at the University of Alberta, in fact, concluded that an Olympic-sized swimming pool was likely to contain about 225 liters of urine.
Which sounds like, to quote another of Sandler’s films, a shitload of piss. But, in a swimming pool, is it? The urine content of even the most urine-heavy of pools is, percentage-wise, minute. Those 225 liters of aforementioned urine are surrounded by enough water that the actual piss mass is less than one thousandth of one percent of the pool volume, meaning any pee-seeking dye would have its work cut out for it.
“Most pools are 20,000 gallons (91,000 liters) or more, so to make a few ounces of urine show up as a bright color would take some serious chemistry,” says bzsteele, a former pool supplies store employee, who recalls new pool owners asking about the dye. “There are cheap tests that could detect urine, but things like sweat, detergent and lotions would also be likely to spike them, so you’d be thrown off by all kinds of false positives. And once the reaction had happened, I’m not sure how you would undo it and get the pool back to stable.”
There’s also the fact that disinfection byproducts, or DBPs — created when the chlorine in pools reacts with the endless streams of pee released into them — are far more harmful than chlorine or urine would be on their own. Haloacetic acid, trihalomethane and chlorite can all be created by chlorine and organic matter (sweat as well as pee) reacting together, and can lead to respiratory issues, eye complaints, “lifeguard lung” and asthma. Adding more volatile chemicals, then, is unlikely to improve matters. And although pool disinfection techniques that require less chlorine (such as UV light, saltwater and hydroxyl-based systems) are increasingly being taken up by pool owners concerned about DBPs, a color-changing substance to stop people peeing in the pool is still nowhere in sight.
“Peeing in the pool isn’t great for the water chemistry,” says bzsteele. “However, average pools are huge, have proper sanitation and great filtration where every drop is filtered and circulated multiple times a day. In the long run, whatever [dye] you added would probably be more expensive and worse for you and the pool equipment than just having a random kid pee in it every now and then.”
The real power of the urine-indicator dye myth, of course, is that it might make a few more people get out and go to the bathroom rather than relieve themselves in the pool, which can only be a good thing — we can probably assume that the original rumor was started for this very purpose. Less wee means less DBPs, so despite being a lie, maybe the dye myth continues because everyone knows, deep down, they probably shouldn’t be peeing where they swim.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve been in a public pool and I’m remembering why.
Some may still eat that. Now, label it HOMEMADE TOFU, and I think it would be quite safe.
Kim Chee works too....................
Hey jackass, is this really an urban legend we WANT debunked?
Debunk it if you will. But we all swallow some water when we go swimming. Can’t help but not.
““Most pools are 20,000 gallons (91,000 liters) or more, so to make a few ounces of urine show up as a bright color would take some serious chemistry,” “
When the urine enters the pool it is highly concentrated.
Our neighbor had a sign by their pool that said “We don’t swim in your toilet so don’t piddle in our pool.” Quite vulgar, actually.
Shocking, the movies lie
What are you going to tell me next, that an 89lbs woman really can’t beat up multiple 250lb+ guys?
My mom used to tell me if you swallow chewing gum it sticks to your insides forever.
Welcome to our ool. We left the P out and hope you will do the same.
BTW...the “jackass” is not you. It’s whoever decided debunking it was a fine idea. I want that fear there...for the few people it still deters.
In all the pool supply catalogues I browsed through over the years I never saw any ad for such a pee-detecting chemical - never thought much about it usually, although the frogs, chipmunks and squirrels I would pull out occasionally gave me some pause......
a harmless chemical that you could give to someone that made the piss blue!.........
We grew some beets last year that were exceptionally delicious! I love beets!
They had extremely powerfull red pigments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeturia
It’s funny. I never had a pool turn colors when I urinated in ‘em, but they did turn brown when I took a dump in ‘em. Go figure.
We don’t swim in your toilet, so please don’t pee in our pool!
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