Most people know that glass items and swimming pools don’t mix. It’s posted at every public pool, and the prohibition of glass items is included in just about every pool code on earth! But what happens if glass breaks at a pool? Why is it such a big deal, and why does it require fully draining the water? Read on to find out!
Introduction of Glass into Aquatics Facilities
When glass breaks on the pool deck, it can be easy to ask, “Didn’t that person know better?” The simple answer is: given the amount of glass we use in our everyday lives, accidents can happen! People who use the pool may wear glasses, and we may not even consider that common items like cell phones and watches have glass screens. Additionally, with recent health and environmental studies highlighting the negatives of plastic, more and more companies are packaging items in glass containers for distribution. This may be great for health and recycling but presents increased challenges for aquatic venues.
Why is Glass Dangerous in the Pool?
If you’ve ever broken glass in your home, you’ve probably found a piece of it long after you thought you’d finished cleaning. Shards can travel significant distances and break into thousands of small pieces—right down to the limit of what your eyes can see. Now imagine trying to find every single shard of glass in half a million gallons of water!
While mechanical filtration does remove glass, it only takes a very small piece to cause major—and even life-threatening—issues in the human body. Stepping on glass is painful, and pool users tend to be barefoot. In rare cases, swallowing or inhaling pool water that contains a shard of glass can result in damage to the respiratory or digestive systems and even cause internal bleeding.
Glass fragments can also cause severe damage to pool equipment, although this is much less concerning than the risk of injury to swimmers.
Glass Remediation
If there is a chance that glass may have entered the pool, the industry standard is to fully drain the body of water. Once dry, the pool shell can be swept and vacuumed to remove any glass fragments. This process is typically repeated several times before the pool is refilled and rebalanced. As this is the widely accepted industry standard, a failure to adhere that results in injury is a clear case of negligence. Regardless of whether it happens at PPATC, a community center, or your backyard pool, these same procedures should be followed for safety before the pool can be reopened.
Broken glass in an aquatics venue isn’t fun for anyone. Swimmers are unable to use the pool, it’s expensive to the company, and it’s a lot of work for the pool operations team! While pool rules are posted and multiple steps are taken to prevent glass from entering the pool area, everyone can help by leaving glass objects at home or in a designated locker. And if you see another patron with glass on deck, remind them of the policy—it’s probably not intentional!
Rory Grigull | Director of Facilities