New Scientific Test Finds Up To 75 Liters of Urine In Public Pools (theguardian.com)

Scientists have developed a test designed to estimate how much urine has been covertly added to a large volume of water. "The test works by measuring the concentration of an artificial sweetener, acesulfame potassium (ACE), that is commonly found in processed food and passed through the body unaltered," reports The Guardian. The findings are published in the American Chemical Society journal. From the report: After tracking the levels of the sweetener in two public pools in Canada over a three-week period they calculated that swimmers had released 75 liters of urine -- enough to fill a medium-sized dustbin -- into a large pool (about 830,000 liters, one-third the size of an Olympic pool) and 30 liters into a second pool, around half the size of the first. Although the researchers were unable to confirm exactly what fraction of visitors were choosing to quietly relieve themselves in the water rather than making the shivery trip to the changing rooms, the results suggest that the urine content was being topped up several times each day. The findings make for unwelcome reading, but swimmers might find some comfort in the measurements from eight hot tubs, which were found to have far higher urine levels. One hotel Jacuzzi had more than three times the concentration of sweetener than in the worst swimming pool. In total, the team sampled 31 different pools and tubs in two Canadian cities and found ACE to be present in 100% of the samples, with concentrations up to 570 times the background level in tap water samples. They used the average ACE concentration in Canadian urine to convert their measurements into approximate volumes of urine.

Comments

No shit

[rossdee]

nope, no shit, just pee

Re:No shit

[Dr_Barnowl]

And frankly, who gives a shit.

You sweat the same stuff as you get in pee. You're covered in this stuff already. You're probably get more of someone else's on you from shaking hands with someone than you do from jumping in the pool.

And unless you have a bladder infection, pee is sterile.

There's no reason for concern, and what's more, people don't want to know. There was a vogue for putting chemicals in the pool that turned purple when they mixed with pee. Guess what? No-one uses them any more, because thinking about swimming in someone else's pee is far more of a (mental) health hazard than actually swimming in someone else's (highly diluted) pee.

Re:No shit

[Joce640k]

I like the bit about hotel Jacuzzis being much worse. Pee in Jacuzzis is obviously done deliberately.

"Stop peeing in the pool, kid!"

"But ... everybody does it!"

"Yeah but not from the diving board..."

Re: No shit

[ArmoredDragon]

Yep, I have renal insufficiency, and I was curious if sweating would help lower blood urea nitrogen, uric acid, and serum phosphorus, and sure enough, I found an NIH white paper that found that sweat has higher amounts of them (and creatinine, and potassium) than blood.

So, I deliberately spend relatively long periods in the hot tub to help excrete fluids and electrolytes. In other words, I pee in the hot tub just because of the fact that I'm sitting in it.

And my lab results turn out better, not to mention I get less edema in my legs, thus I can tolerate drinking more water.

As a percentage

[Anonymous Coward]

That works out to around 0.009% urine content.

I can live with that.

Captcha: "manure"

Wait, what?

[Notabadguy]

First - this is a copy/paste from Soylent. I thought they were supposed to be trying to be like Slashdot, not the other way around? We're used to mainstream news beating Slashdot to the punch by days, but when our own RIPOFF site has news before we do, that Slashdot copies...WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK?!?

Also...this test only works for people who are using one particular artificial sweetener. Since the discussion started around Olympic swimmers - and this test probably wouldn't work in Olympic pools since those swimmers are on rigorous diets...

Welp, I guess we just shift it to try being more topical.

Those kind of article stick into our head forever!

[JcMorin]

Sometimes. I would prefer to enjoy life and be a total ignorant. Yet slashdot remind me that reality is not always good to know. That said, once you learn it, you never forget it! Happy swimming!

Re:"enough to fill a medium-sized dustbin"

[swb]

Duh, just convert it to imperial pecks and you'll instantly visualize it as a dustbin.

Of course just knowing is gross, but...

[swb]

..it's 5 hundredths of a percent of the water volume. And since urine is 95% water, you're talking about less than 4 liters out of nearly a million liters of water. It wouldn't surprise me if the mass of dead skin or even hair was greater than non-aqueous urine components.

And since our swimsuits aren't hermetically sealed against our bodies, I'd wager there's some measurable amount of fecal matter in the pool too. Maybe some vaginal discharge and/or menstrual fluid, too. And you can't discount the amount of mucus and other sinus discharges along with some saliva from the people who like all of the above so much they get water in their mouths.

But in spite of all this (assuming the filtration and chlorination systems are working), the water in the pool is still way cleaner than most other bodies of water people swim in.

I've seen pictures of the Ganges that make me retch and people *bathe* in that water.

Re:Those kind of article stick into our head forev

[lucm]

At least it's outside your body. Think of what happens when you go to a public bathroom that smells bad: what you're breathing was previously inside someone. I mean, the actual molecules that are entering your nose used to be part of someone else digestive system. Maybe even more than one person.

That's a lot worse than a bucket of piss diluted in a big pool filled with chlorine.

Re:Those kind of article stick into our head forev

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you don't know anything about homeopathic medicine! Water has a memory, so if someone pees in the hot tub, even if you drain all but a teaspoon of the water and refill the tub it will still contain the essence of that person's urine.

Re:Look at the bright side

[Hognoxious]

It's a swimming pool for half of August. The rest of the year it's a skating rink.