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Comment by sizzzzlerz | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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...

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.

Maybe 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.

I 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...

>>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.

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.

I remember a brain freeze episode as well! I can't really recall the plot anymore, but that one definitely stuck with me for some reason.

Pete & Pete is an absolutely fantastic and deeply strange show. Many lazy summer days of my childhood were spent trying to re-create some of the things I saw on it. It's an eternal favorite.

https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Pete-Season/dp/B01IMU1MQA (the 1st season)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWL6oTWQDfQ (arguably their best episode, Das Bus)

I always felt terrible for the chain smoking crossing guard that never abandoned his post. Until little pete took over and made mad cash out of it. But a young Buscemi and king of the road were my favorites.

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

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 ;)

Well that's certainly antisocial.

He didn't say he did it.

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.

Is this the justifications of a pool defiler?

Well, if it's not an issue, why bother spending time solving it?

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.

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!

Really? Why do I bother lathering my hand for 20 seconds and losing fat and then rubbing alcohol on it after I accidentally splash a bit?

Because you don’t like the smell? You’re afraid other people will think you are gross? You have been trained to fear pee?

In normal circumstances getting urine on skin (or drinking small amounts of it for that matter) is not going to cause you any health problem. Urine contains various toxins your liver removed from your bloodstream, so drinking large amounts of it might not be the best idea.

Modern American (and possibly other) cultures have various taboos around cleanliness, including disgust about pee and peeing. But often these are not based on serious health fears.

Don’t pee on wounds though. Urine is not sterile. https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/gory-details/urine-not-ster...

Actually, if you are just using the bathroom to pee, you should probably wash your hands before you go, as your hands are usually "dirtier" than your genitals are.

Dark and moist genital area is a much better breeding ground than light-exposed, dry hands. I assure you there are microbes down there.

Though interestingly, it can be according the article's summary of the study?

    More than 70 percent of the urine samples contained 
    bacteria, including at least 33 types of bacteria 
    (at the genus level) in normal urine.

This suggests that 30% were sterile.

Because you just touched your pelvic region which has tons more bacteria than urine itself does. Urine will have some, especially some from the urethra on the way out, so definitely shouldn't be considered sterile, but wash your hands if you're touching your pelvic region in general please.

Exactly. Fecal coliform bacteria migrate: https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1043/why-are-men-s...

I think your hands probably have more bacteria than your junk.

I think this should go without saying, but this is obviously untrue. Yet, I've heard it more times than I could ever recall.

Where did this myth come from?

It came from the time when harmless bacteria weren't recognized as a thing, only infectious germs; urine from a healthy person does not tend to contain harmful bacteria and is this not an infection vector, thus it was held, incorrectly, to be sterile.

Urine is not sterile,though it normally doesn't contain harmful bacteria, and it's not generally good to pee on wounds, and even the specific cases it's been popularized as a treatment for (jellyfish stings) it's not a good idea.

You're not being downvoted as a punishment, it's to help signal that the comment is wrong.

And you're only at a medium gray color.

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.

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.

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

Every competitive swimmer or water polo player pees in the pool. Nobody really cares about it.

I love this story.

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.

Maybe they shouldn't be in the pool then.

If you know a humane way to get children and seniors to never accidentally pee a little you could be making a lot of money.

Keep 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?

> 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.

It was never done nor possible.

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

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.

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.

I 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.

Swim 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.

Swim 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.

Iceland has solved that problem... https://icelandmag.is/article/wash-thoroughly-without-swimsu...

Makes sense, not sure why other countries don't do the same. I'd much prefer fewer chemicals in the water and a required shower than the current system in the US.

That actually sounds fantastic. Cleanliness, equality, shameless nudity, and a little compassion. What great qualities to instill into people.

That's what I do after spending time in Finland. The funny thing is, everyone else in the pool looks at me like I'm crazy for showering and using soap before I get in the pool, they just get themselves wet in their swimming trunks before going in.

> 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.

Swim diapers are to prevent feces from getting in the pool, or at least greatly limit the quantity. They really don't do much of anything for urine, nor are they intended to. (An absorbent diaper in a pool would be useless and fail completely as it would become oversaturated.)

Not sure why this is getting downvoted because it’s 100% correct. I’ve got two toddlers, we use these and it says this on the package.

Dunno why. Swim diapers are only to keep solid poop from escaping into the water. They aren't at all meant to keep in urine. To keep urine (or liquid poo) from escaping you'd basically need some kind of completely waterproof barrier between the kiddo and the pool water... which would be pretty friggin awkward to wear.

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

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:

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

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.

You 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.

Sometimes kids even poop in the pool. Happened at a pool we went to last week.

I 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.

Parent 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.

That is exactly what the swim diapers are for!

Are you suggesting that perhaps some people think it is all right to leave their kid in the pool with a swim diaper full of excrement?

Sure, but it's not always obvious when a kid wearing a swim diaper poops. And they don't always tell you. Especially if they know it means they have to get out of the pool to change the diaper.

Swim diapers basically keep the _turds_ stationary. Water will still chew away at it and disperse poop everywhere, so its basically run out of the water when an "accident" happens. Still better than solid poop floating around I guess, but also, potentially, really nasty.

Poop can still leak out of swim diapers. After going to swim lessons with my daughter and a dozen other 6-month-olds at the local YMCA, I understand why it is so heavily chlorinated.

I got a staff infection from the pool at our apartment when I was in middle school. Looking back, that apartment complex was a real dump.

Dark secret - swim diapers don't hold everything in.

And this is a dead giveaway you're not a parent, or have never dealt with swim diapers :)

Swim diapers are designed to simply make sure the poop and the kid are in the same general area and that it's easy to remove them from the water as a self contained unit. It will still absolutely contaminate the water in some way, there's no escaping it.

Or, rather, there is a lot escaping it. :)

I wish they would ban swim diapers altogether. You never know what's in there, there probably is something, if the parents see the necessity. Just ban child and parent for a month if they can't hold it and spoil the pool for everyone.

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.

I agree with you, but more importantly, I think I'm done with pools after reading the comments today.

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.

When I grew up they always had a separate pool for babies.

potty training!

Sure, but the pool is supposed to be closed for a while for clean-up.

When the sign says "shower before entering the pool" they aren't just talking about sweat. They mean "clean your butthole, you are a filthy primate". If your butthole isn't clean before you enter the pool, you're pooping in the pool.

Urine and feces are completely different from a bacterial point of view, so this is a completely different level of contamination.

At a kiddie pool I visited sometimes, this happened and they drained the whole thing. Maybe there is a chlorine regime that can be applied when/if this happens to a larger pool.

This is likely not a widespread policy (or if it is, I doubt it's followed), but I'm pretty sure at a pool I worked at if there was feces they would evacuate the pool for 20m. 20m was chosen because that's how long the pump system would circulate all of the water 1x or 3x.

I mean, what about all the other body fluids/debris that are in pools? Saliva, sweat, earwax, belly button lint, bird shit, insects, band-aids, small animal carcasses that get trapped in the filters but are removed before the pool opens?

There's no avoiding other peoples/animals grossness, frankly whether your in a pool or just out and about.

Urine may be gross, but it's sterile, and at least for me, there are grosser things in pools.

Your comment appears to suggest you would find it not unpleasant to swim in a pool entirely filled with urine. Or do you acknowledge the fact that a lower concentration of bodily fluids in a swimming pool is more attractive as a swimmer?

I'm saying that singling out urine as the thing to be grossed out about in a pool, while understandable in a vacuum, is in reality one of the least problematic things in a pool, or in your daily environment in general.

So you shouldn't let the thought of potential urine in a pool stop you from enjoying pools, because if that's your threshold, you're going to have to drastically modify your daily habits to avoid things that are more dangerous/gross you encounter during every day tasks.

Everyone has their "this grosses me out" quirks. I just find it beneficial to do a reality check on them, to make sure that there's actually a reason to be grossed out by it, instead of letting an unfounded fear affect my decision making. And the reason I find this important is because I have plenty of those quirks myself.

>Your comment appears to suggest you would find it not unpleasant to swim in a pool entirely filled with urine.

I really hope someday I don't have to explicitly say things like "Just because I'm capable of swimming in a pool that might have some urine in it, doesn't mean I'm OK with swimming in a pool comprised solely of urine."

> I really hope someday I don't have to explicitly say things like "Just because I'm capable of swimming in a pool that might have some urine in it, doesn't mean I'm OK with swimming in a pool comprised solely of urine."

Just like I long for the day I don't have to explain to somebody that just because I know urine isn't dangerous to swim in doesn't mean I wouldn't prefer to swim in a pool with less urine. Yet here we are.

What was it W.C. Fields used to say about drinking water?

“It’s good for you”

-WCF

Fish chlorinate it?

"Gross" doesn't necessarily mean unhealthy.

I swim in the San Francisco Bay 3 times a week, 25 minutes at a time, no goggles, just a cap and a bathing suit. I've swum near gross things like dead seagulls & dead seals, and I'm sure a lot of gross stuff drains into the Bay, but as long as the sewage treatment plant doesn't overflow I'm not worried.

Agreed, that's kinda my point. The evolutionary theory behind why we have feelings of grossness is just that "this thing is potentially dangerous to me," so we developed this sense of "gross" so we'd avoid the potentially harmful thing (although a quick google search doesn't bring back the study i'm thinking of that demonstrated this). But obviously that reinforced/learned feeling might not always be accurate.

I get grossed out by plenty of things, so I have to consciously evaluate whether it's just gross, vs actually a problem. If it's just gross, I can consciously then decide to just get over it and have a nice swim (or whatever) regardless.

EDIT: Here's a couple links about what I'm trying to get at:

Study on disgust and the spread of disease: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201...

Article on digust wrt the spread of disease: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/science/disgusts-evolutio...

I'm not sure about other cultures, but in Japan they're pretty explicit about washing before entering an onsen. They even discourage putting your towel in the water, wearing a bathing suit, or submerging your head (as well as going when you have open cuts or sores). But, they also prefer mineral water to chlorine and it's generally fed from a spring or the water is changed every day.

I'm not a fan of overly cleanliness, but not doing these things means you have to add more chlorine. In addition to the aesthetic unpleasantness of chlorine and other chemicals, it's harder on the pool equipment and like another commenter said, it should require better ventilation that most pools currently have.

This reminds me of being grossed out by particular foods. Nowadays I take the approach that if people have eaten it for a long time, it's probably worth at least a try.

Perhaps helped out because my #1 example is chicken. Who doesn't like chicken?... me, as a kid, because it was often prepared terribly.

That's why public pools really push showering /before/ you get into the pool.

This is why I don't swim in pools or natural bodies of water any more.

I never thought about it as a kid, but as an adult I'm much more conscious of all of this really disgusting stuff in there and it just really grosses me out.

Most of the things you listed you have no control over, but you can totally get out of the pool to pee. I see zero reason to pee in a public pool unless you are a toddler and have no control over it.

I read an article recently (can't find it) that the worst offenders are pro swimmers. They drink loads of water during their multi-hour workouts, and don't take breaks to go pee...

Urine is not sterile. Please stop spreading this myth. It's causing people do to nasty stuff like pee i sinks.

Just wait until you find out what's in the ocean.

I heard somewhere an interview with a water polo player who said he'd never known a player to get out of the pool to pee.

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...

Where I live, plenty more people are infected from bacteria in goose poop in lakes than from human waste in swimming pools.

That’s why it’s never such a good idea to swim in a lake.

At the very least, you shouldn’t stick your head in the water, and swimming in shallower areas exposes you more strongly to contaminants than in deep areas.

conversely, it seems like unless there are dead bodies in the water, human waste would be the worst likely contaminant. or am I missing something?

There's certainly the dead bodies/waste products of fish in natural water, and there's no chlorine to sterilize them.

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...

> This is why I don't swim in pools.

Meaning you swim in lakes/rivers instead? I doubt animal waste and decay products are better. At least the pool has chlorine.

Wait until you find out you splash yourself with urine every time you use the toilet. Or that millions of bacteria are defecating on you as we speak. It's all in your head, these things are not harming you.

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.

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.

No diaper can hold pee in while in a pool. Pool diapers only hold poo, and even then only some of it.

> Pool diapers only hold poo, and even then only some of it.

Quite a lot, actually, but not all.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/15216564/

“Swim diapers of all three brands exhibited an approximately equal fine-solids retention capability of about 98 to 99 percent over 30 minutes of water immersion activity. Conventional disposable diapers invariably fell down or came apart during the experiments, resulting in very limited solids retention. This study indicates that commercially available swim diapers represent a vast improvement in reducing the potential for fecal material release in public pool facilities, but that some release will still generally occur with these products.”

I wonder how well they work in the real world? I had trouble finding a properly fitting swim diaper for my son. They seemed to require a fairly tight fit around the abdomen and legs (which vary greatly across children and as the grow). Because it's only a handful of times during the summer and most places only carried 1 or 2 styles, I can see the few people who got them might not have the right size or wear it properly.

If your kid for any reason including swim diapers sucking can't keep from shitting up the pool your kid just has to wait until this isn't true to swim doesn't seem like a hard choice.

Thanks for sharing your opinion, but I don't really see how that contributes to this conversation. This comments section has a whole lot of pretty hostile replies calling out parents. I don't really see how that addresses anything.

In my case, my child's doctor recommended taking him to a pool as therapy for his motor skills because of developmental problems. He was still over a year away from being potty trained. I researched and ordered 2 or 3 different swim diapers and tried to find the one that fit the best.

During this time I noticed that most brick-and-mortar stores only carry 1 or 2 kinds and I'm sure parents going to the pool on summer vacation won't have the patience I did. Which is why I was curious about this study. It reminded me that condom use is 98% effective, but under typical use is 88-90%. I can easily see the same thing happening with swim diaper effectiveness.

If you're actually concerned about public health and not just the ick factor, I would think young children would be completely banned in most pools or policies for dealing with feces would be more clear when it comes to licensing and regulation. This wasn't my experience working around pools years ago.

"In my case, my child's doctor recommended taking him to a pool as therapy for his motor skills because of developmental problems. He was still over a year away from being potty trained"

Seems like a special case that applies to 1 in 100,000. In most cases kids in diapers indeed ought to be restricted from public pools.

I'm not sure how common it is, but I've seen/heard of on multiple occasions a kid needing to pee in a department store and the parent saying something like "just go over there", with "over there" being somewhere on the floor where employees can't see.

Luckily this isn't a majorly normal thing, but it does happen from time to time.

Where in the world do you live?

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

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

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.

I doubt Phelps was fucking with the interviewer. I was also a competitive swimmer and my experience matches what Phelps said.

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

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.

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

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

Who cares about the financial impact when you've that sweet mysophobia to drive your decisions?

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?

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

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

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