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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.
by sizzzzlerz 8y 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 8y agoThe quantity of urea would be to low unfortunately for any indicator compound. https://youtu.be/S32y9aYEzzo https://youtu.be/S32y9aYEzzo
- eesmith 8y agoAnd Snopes, at https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/piscine-of-the-crime/ 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 8y agoI may be missing the joke here, but for many years swimming pools merely _claimed_ they had this, to discourage people.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- cbsks 8y agoI 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 ;)
- unimpressive 8y agoWell that's certainly antisocial.
- badcede 8y agoHe didn't say he did it.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- LeonM 8y agoMy 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.
- jules 8y agoMaybe they shouldn't be in the pool then.
- TallGuyShort 8y agoIf you know a humane way to get children and seniors to never accidentally pee a little you could be making a lot of money.
- jules 8y agoKeep them in a separate pool or mandate pool diapers. Consider this thought experiment. You have a movie theatre where the people on the balcony may pee and that pee drips down on the faces of people below them. Would this be considered acceptable and would I be considered insensitive for complaining and insisting that those people wear diapers or else should not be in a place where their pee ends up in the faces of others? Why is it acceptable in a swimming pool?
- dragonwriter 8y ago> Keep them in a separate pool or mandate pool diapers Pool diapers have roughly zero effect on urine (the whole reason for pool diapers is to retain feces in an environment where liquid absorbent diapers inherently will fail completely.) So, the pool diapers plan for dealing with urination is unworkable.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- michaelmrose 8y ago
- electriclove 8y ago'Grown Ups' Blue Urine Clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbkNt48cvsg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbkNt48cvsg
- trentlott 8y agoI 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_jpewLabhLTUcqGrrAW&t=289 https://youtu.be/xQOePM_ewVM?list=PLBwI3kpp6F3Kk0_jpewLabhLT...
- djsumdog 8y agoI 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.
- supermw 8y agoMaybe there's a machine learning solution. If we could have devices that could somehow probe the temperature of the water on an X,Y graph and detect when the ambient temperature around an individual has changed we can sound an alarm to detect possible urination or even a laser that can draw a circle around the targeted area.
- IronBacon 8y agoI saw a video on YouTube where a researcher described a way to estimate the volume of pee diluted in the pool water measuring the artificial sweetener present in a sample. This will exclude people that don't drink zero calories soft drinks tho...
- 8y ago
- martin-adams 8y agoWhile 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.
- illumin8 8y agoMost 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.
- cm2012 8y agoI wonder if that's a local thing or new thing. I've never heard of nor seen a diaper like that, and I used to go to lots of pools.
- dragonwriter 8y agoSwim diapers don't look like conventional diapers; they look pretty close to normal swim briefs (and in some cases are worn under other swimwear and are pretty unnoticeable.) They are a solids barrier, not filled with absorbent material like conventional diapers. They also, contrary to GP, are not at all intended to control urine release, only feces.
- tastyfreeze 8y agoSwim diapers do very little to keep pee or dissolved feces in them. They are there to keep turds from floating away long enough for a parent to take care of it. Also, how many dirty assholes are getting cleaned by the pool water? That dude that was just grunting in the stall of the locker room likely didn't wash his ass before jumping in.
- alistairSH 8y ago
- DigiMortal 8y agoHave you ever seen the south park episode, "minorities in my water park?" lol
- deepGem 8y agoGosh 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.
- gambiting 8y agoI'm constantly shocked and disgusted that people actually pee in pools and that it's not some joke someone made up somewhere.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Varcht 8y agoYou could try to convince yourself of the therapeutic benefits of urine, might be better for your psyche in the long run. Sort of like, spit in fast food builds antibodies.
- sbov 8y agoSometimes kids even poop in the pool. Happened at a pool we went to last week.
- illumin8 8y agoI would never swim in a pool like this. Every pool I've been to required toddlers to wear special swim diapers to prevent exactly this scenario. There are some really nasty diseases that can spread through human waste, and I would not want to come in contact with them.
- tsmarsh 8y agoParent of two kids that have used swim diapers. I would be very surprised if those diapers were even 10% effective. Out of the pool they're basically 0% effective. And yes, I've read the instructions, and spoken to the folks who run the pool. Mostly I think they're just there to keep the poop in long enough to get the kid out of the pool.
- amelius 8y agoHow 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.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- michaelmrose 8y agoIs this the justifications of a pool defiler?
- mikkelam 8y agoWell, if it's not an issue, why bother spending time solving it?
- matteuan 8y agoeven 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 8y agoUrine 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!
- barkingcat 8y agoI support this but don't let the colour disappear. So that you know that you're getting into a pee pool or not.
- partiallypro 8y agoThat would be wildly expensive as it would require you to drain the entire pool afterwards.
- Retra 8y agoWho cares about the financial impact when you've that sweet mysophobia to drive your decisions?
- snuxoll 8y agoMany of the detectible compounds found in human urine are also in another excretion our body makes: sweat.
- 00N8 8y agowe 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 8y agoI 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 8y agoI 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 8y agoWhy on earth would you pee in the pool to begin with?
- sincerely 8y agoEvery competitive swimmer or water polo player pees in the pool. Nobody really cares about it.
- swebs 8y agoI love this story.
- trumped 8y agohave the kids drink a 1/8 of a cup of pool water when they get out (just kidding)
- dpcan 8y agoKids 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?