The sand at the beach contains more feces than sewage-contaminated oceans
A hot news topic this summer was the prevalence of urine contaminating our pools and thus burning our eyes. Therefore, we've all parted ways from such pools (if we know what's good for us) and have instead retreated to our favorite breezy, refreshing, clean beaches. At least, we thought they were clean.
While we knew that sea water is often contaminated with sewage (not to mention even more urine than pools), we thought we were at least safe on the warm golden sand. Apparently we have to think again. Scientists have reportedly revealed that sand actually contains 100 times more fecal matter than contaminated sea water.
In other words, it's cleaner to swim in the world's largest toilet (as our germaphobe friends often call it) than it is to lay on the sand.
This fact has apparently been known in the science world for quite some time, we just never got the memo. Now, thanks to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Hawaii's Tao Yan, the truth is out.
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After conducting research on the matter, Tao Yan concluded that fecal matter decays much slower in beach sand than in seawater. He explained:
"the differential decay of waste-water bacteria in beach sand and in seawater provides a kinetic explanation to the often-observed higher abundance of fecal indicator bacteria in beach sand."
In case that statement just read as complete gibberish to you, Tao Yan basically suggests that feces decays in the sea quite easily and therefore is less prevalent in oceans than it is in sand.
Next time you're burying your adorable 3-year-old in the sand from the neck down, you might want to think about that. So long bare feet and sand castles, hello flip flops and lounge chairs.
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