What Swimming Pool Urine Does To Your Body

By Calvin, Entertainment and Lifestyle Staff Writer

Fancy a swim? A video from Risk Bites explained that in an accidental gulp, swimmers are likely to ingest about 0.1 litres of liquid, and included in that cocktail of water and wastewater that could be about 20 nanolitres of urine.

On the surface of the swimming pool, there really isn’t that much wee that can actually harm your body. Aside from leaving a dodgy taste on your tongue, the chlorine in the pool which is meant to help keep the water clean and safe actually binds with the uric acid to form a toxic substance, cyonagen oxide. In fact, it is so toxic that all production of the chemical in laboratories has to be reported to the Organisation for The Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Surprising, isn’t it?

On exposure to cyonagen oxide, symptoms can vary from minor skin and eye irritation to nausea, vomiting and in high enough concentrations, even death. But, you would probably need three million people in the pool before it even starts to become a major problem.