POOL POTTY?
Experts say mix of urine and chlorine can irritate lungs — and there’s a lot of urine in public pools,
Science now supports what many already know: sometimes people pee in the pool.
In findings published earlier this month in Environmental Science & Technology, researchers at the University of Alberta analyzed water from more than 30 hot tubs and pools in two Canadian cities.
Their research eventually led them to discover an estimated 75 litres of pee in a 840,000-litre pool (about one-third the size of an Olympic pool) and 30 litres in a 420,000-litre one.
While everyone seems to cringe at the thought, researchers and publichealth experts say the pee itself is basically sterile, but issues can emerge when it mixes with the disinfectants that are used to keep pools clean.
Lindsay Blackstock, the study’s lead researcher and post-grad student at the University of Alberta, explained that when chlorine meets urine, something called trich lo ramine emerges. This, she said, is that strong pool smell most people think is chlo- rine, and has also been found to irritate people’s eyes and lungs.
“The urine is kind of a yuck factor,” said Ray Copes, head of environmental and occupational health at Public Health Ontario. “But it’s the chemical reaction that goes on in the pool between the urine and the chlorine producing those compounds that can irritate the lungs that I think is the real question from a health perspective.”
He said he hopes this new research reminds people to behave the way they should.
“I certainly still swim in pools,” Copes said. “Swimming is a good healthy activity and we’d like to encourage more of that. What we’d also like to encourage is that when people are in those pools, swimming and getting good exercise, that they go to the bathroom first and they don’t use the pool to urinate in.”
Despite her findings, Blackstock believes the benefits of swimming outweigh the risks.
“It’s not a problem people should be afraid of,” she said. “There’s a really simple solution, and that’s just to quit peeing in the pools.”
Blackstock’s team never directly measured pee. Instead, the team tested pool samples for an artificial sweetener called acesulfame-K (or, ACE) — which runs through the hu- man body completely whole and acts as an urinary marker.
Blackstock’s team found that all of the pool water they tested was positive for at least some amount of this sweetener. The amount of sweetener discovered helped them determine how much urine was in the water.
She added that good public-swimming hygiene practices, like showering before entering the pool, are also important. Toronto health officials agree.
“An individual who uses public pools and spas has the individual responsibility to use the washroom and shower using soap and water before entering a pool or spa,” said Mahesh Patel, manager of healthy environments at Toronto Public Health, in an email.
She said Toronto doesn’t have a way of tracking or measuring how much urine is in the city’s pools, because it is “generally sterile and does not pose a health risk.”
Pee in the pool isn’t handled the same as poop, Patel explained, because feces can contain diseasecausing bacteria and viruses that can be easily transmitted. Hence the big scene that unfolds whenever that happens.
Patel noted that pool and spas in the city are regularly inspected in keeping with standards.