Wee in the pool: Scientific data shows 75 litres of standard swimming pools contain urine

By Fiona Pepper

Are you guilty of weeing in the pool?

Well, scientists now know how to accurately measure how much urine is in the water.

Canadian scientists have developed a way of determining the wee volume by using a widely used synthetic sweetener which remains complete when excreted as a urinary marker.

Professor Xing-Fang Li from the University of Alberta told ABC Radio Melbourne their research found that in an average-sized 830,000-litre swimming pool there could be up to 75 litres of wee.

To put that amount into perspective, that is around 570 times more urine than is found in your tap water, the study said.

While Dr Li admitted the amount of wee being found in swimming pools was not ideal, she said “urine itself is sterile”.

“However, we do have many compounds in urine, for example urea and nitrogen-content compounds, which can react with chlorine disinfectants that can produce by-products we don’t want to be exposed to.”

She added that the risks were not high enough to stop anyone from swimming.

“In Australia, Canada, the US or European countries, swimming pools are very well controlled and it’s automatically adding additional chlorine into the pool to make sure the pathogens are disinfected,” she said.

The discovery of an accurate urinary marker means that urine can be more accurately measured in pools.

But Dr Li believes the problem is fairly straightforward.

“It’s a problem with a very simple solution which is just don’t pee in the pool.”

This post originally appeared on ABC News.