Just how much urine is in a public pool?

Researchers Lindsay K. Jmaiff Blackstock, Wei Wang, Sai Vemula, Benjamin T. Jaeger, and Xing-Fang Li wrote that they hope their work helps improve public health.

Scientists used an artificial sweetener found in urine to measure how much pee is in swimming pool water. Indoor pools can be more problematic for people with respiratory conditions, for example, because compounds build up in the air above the water, and there’s less natural sunlight, which breaks down some harmful compounds.

A unique study from Canadian researchers dove into looking for a way to tell if there is urine in public swimming pools. ACE is consistently present in the urine, chemically stable and remains unaltered after passing through the body. The verdict? An alarmingly high amount.

“Urine contains many nitrogenous compounds such as urea, ammonia, amino acids, and creatinine”, they said.

According to the tests, a 183,000 gallon swimming pool contained a whopping 17 gallons of urine, and a 91,500 gallon pool had 5.8 gallons. The levels found in pools, however, are almost negligible.

Thus, the researchers looked for ACE in the water samples and then calculated how much there was by volume.

Ace-K, as it is more commonly known, is an artificial sweetener widely consumed by people in sodas, baked goods and countless other processed foods.

This study clearly shows the human impact in pools and tubs.

Science indicates that all the pee in pools might actually do some harm.

What’s even more disgusting is they found that a pool about one-third the size of an Olympic pool (830,000-liters or 220,000-gallons) had 75 liters of urine.

In the case of hot tubs, the results turned out to be much worse than the findings from all the public pools. One hotel jacuzzi was found to have over three times the concentration of the worst swimming pools, which means you’re basically bubbling away in warm piss.

The researchers tested 31 pools and jacuzzis from two Canadian cities and they found pee in each of them.

Before the 2012 Olympics in London, U.S. Olympic swimmers Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps admitted that peeing in the pool is acceptable behavior.

Blackstock advised being more considerate of other pool users and to make sure to leave the pool to use the toilet once nature comes knocking.