Feel Like a Swim?

I would not swim in your toilet, please do not pee in my pool.

 

Good pool hygiene: Don't pee in the pool

 

The Canadian Press  
Updated: Mon. Jun. 1 2009 12:09 PM ET

TORONTO — There's a famous scene in the 1980 movie "Caddyshack" that shows a chocolate bar being dropped into a country club swimming pool. Horrified swimmers clear the pool because they think the clean blue waters have been sullied by - well, the unmentionable.

But what about the contaminants you can't see?

It's not something you really want to ponder as the weather warms up and you head to your public pool for a refreshing dip, but a recent U.S. survey found that nearly one in five Americans admit to peeing in the pool.

"People sometimes are reluctant to say that they've done it but they think that everyone else has done it," says Linda Golodner, president emeritus of the National Consumers League and vice-chair of the Water Quality and Health Council.

"We found 17 per cent say that they've done it and 78 per cent say they're convinced that fellow swimmers are guilty."

And although public pools everywhere have signs telling bathers to shower before entering the pool deck area, approximately one third said they don't stop to wash and three quarters said that fellow swimmers don't shower before swimming.

"We found it quite interesting to get these results," says Golodner from Washington, D.C. "We knew there was an issue, but we didn't have any numbers behind it."

Altogether 1,000 adults were surveyed online for the council between April 30 and May 3 by TNS Omnibus, and the margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, at 95 per cent confidence.

The council is made up of independent scientific experts, health professionals and consumer advocates who advise the Chlorine Chemistry Division of the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade association.

Cathy Hughes, a facility manager at the University of Toronto's faculty of physical education and health, says she's not surprised by the finding that 17 per cent of respondents admitted to urinating in a pool.

Assuming that a facility is meeting the health regulation requirements for the province, which sets the chlorine levels to treat the water, then there isn't a problem of infection, she says.

"Anything that gets into the water is pretty well killed instantaneously," says Hughes, who oversees three University of Toronto pools. "The bigger concern is actually air quality, not water quality, which most people don't realize."

That's because when uric acid from urine mixes with chlorinated water, chloramines are formed. These, in turn, form into the gas trichloromethane, which is not good to breathe for long periods.

The gases tend to sit low on the water's surface, which is where swimmers breathe, Hughes explained, adding that it's more of an issue at indoor pools where the breezes can't blow the gases away. It is thought these gases pose a health risk to people who breathe them in frequently.

"Some people believe that it increases their risk of having asthma attacks if they're asthmatic - it can cause some respiratory problems," Hughes says.

"If you're a competitive swimmer, you're probably going to run into a lot of problems if you're someone who uses a pool two or three hours a day. For the recreational user who hops in for half an hour to swim some lengths, and hop out, it's very safe."

When you smell a strong chlorine odour at a pool, it's actually chloramines that you're smelling, she says. Chloramines can act as an irritant, causing itchy skin or red eyes.

"A pool that doesn't have chlorine mixed with organic matter, like urine, doesn't have much odour no matter how much chlorine's in there. It's when it mixes with organic matter, when people don't shower, they pee in the pool - that's what irritates you," Hughes says.

And the definition of showering isn't just a quick sprinkle.

"You should use soap and water when you do it. You don't just run through the shower," says Golodner.

Hughes gets more specific.

"The only real shower is one where you've taken your bathing suit off because the parts you want to get are the parts in the hard-to-reach places," Hughes says.

"Most people don't talk about this but the real determinant is when you had your last bowel movement. You want to have showered after that, because you want to be clean. ...The real concern is any residual fecal matter that hasn't been removed."

An exploding diaper or someone with diarrhea can contaminate the water, and people can become sick, Golodner says.

Recreational water illnesses can include diarrhea, respiratory illness, and ear and skin infections. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides these tips for healthy swimming:

-Don't swim when you have diarrhea.

-Don't swallow pool water.

-Shower with soap before swimming and wash hands after using the toilet or changing diapers.

-Take your kids on bathroom breaks or check diapers often. Don't change diapers at poolside.

-Wash children thoroughly (especially the rear end) with soap and water before they go swimming.

As for pool decks, the risks largely concern foot fungus and athlete's foot, says Hughes. It's a good idea to wear flip-flops in the shower area and on the deck, she says.

In terms of sunscreen and bug sprays, Hughes says they don't really make the water unhealthy but they do make the pool look "less nice."

"The oils from your skin end up floating on the surface of the water ... and then it'll try and coat the edges of the water when the water splashes up against the sides of the pool and they get what's called a scum line, and it can look kind of dirty along the edges."

But she says it's hard to tell people at an outdoor facility to scrub off sunscreen because then they could end up with a serious sunburn.