Micro plastic from disintegrating flutter board?

[CptWhiskey]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but here it goes....


Okay, so we've been very happy to have found trouble free pools this year. What a great site, app, everything. Our pool chemistry has been incredible, ever since getting our Taylor kit and following guidelines and the app. This community is an amazing source of knowledge and we are very thankful for it; the people who run it and all of the valuable contributors are legends. Thank you from the shadows for the help thus far!

We are now in holy Darn mode.

We have a small (12x24) inground vinyl liner pool in our yard (that our family loves so much). We have a high water table, poorly draining soil (like 90% clay) and a French drain around our house, the pool, even our vegetable garden for when it's rainy as our tomatoes were getting root rot even though the garden was soil at least 3’ down (yes it's that bad). I hope this is enough background for the water situation outside our pool. If it's not, please ask for any more required information.

Today my child pulled in one of our older dollar store flutter boards. The two newer ones are in good condition (although I will never use them again) but apparently this one, cast aside this entire season, was in shambles/brittle. Image attached is from later, after the incident.

The underside of this board is unfortunately a very hard to see color in the water, especially in daylight. My child used it for a few minutes and then noticed it was falling apart. I then freaked out, swam for a minute and noticed plastic or ribbony plastic bits, both very small and longer EVERYWHERE.

We exited the pool immediately. I was horrified.

Not only is the pool filled with varying sizes of plastic fragments but is likely also filled with micro plastics, unseen by the eye and from what I can tell, not fully filtered by a sand filter.

It's been filtering for 5 hours. The skimmer has some longer bits in it but no smaller bits. I thought okay, smaller bits will be filtered by the sand filter (I thought this 2hrs post incident). The pool is still super filled with plastic. Our pool turnover rate is 2hrs. It's not working. Then I thought of micro plastics and my kids with that water in their mouths (kids are disgusting in their pool and other habits).

I am basically at the point now where I've accepted the pool needs to be emptied, washed down, emptied, washed down lower down, emptied, etc to fix this.

Is there some solution or situation in which the pool can be emptied, without removing the track that holds the liner in place and vacuums placed, etc? Is there some method of removing remaining micro plastics from the liner once drained besides repeater cleaning/dilution/removal that I'm not thinking of?

This just happened so we're kind of still in panic mode but would like to reduce cost while fully removing the potential micro plastics. I've accepted our pool season has come to an abrupt end (it's getting chilly here).

PLEASE HELP!

I will fully inspect all pool toys from this day forward and will never be using things that can degrade like this again but I would like to minimize our costs. We certainly aren't well off.

Our liner is 2 years old and I believe 20mm (rectangular) with 30mm stairs held into place with tracks. (I know this is a terrible shape/stairs being liner, we didn't know any better before installation.)

THANK YOU in advance to anyone who may be able to help guide us, here. We don't know what to do.

 

[PoolStored]

Fear not, it is not likely that you need to drain and refill. Any decent sand filter should filter out the VAST majority of it. Sand filters will take out sizes around 20 microns, which is .0007inches (.02mm). If you have cartridge or DE, even better (They filter out smaller particles. A white blood cell is about 20 microns.

The plastic will either float or settle. I would turn the pump off for 12 hours, and let it settle. I'm assuming that you have a vacuum. If so, then carefully vacuum to filter or waste (if that makes you feel better). Repeat until you get it out. Between skimming, filtering and vacuuming, you will be able to get it out.

What kind of filter do you have? If you have a sand filter, you might consider adding POOL DE to help filter.

Add DE to a Sand Filter

A clean pool filter will increase the efficiency of your pool! ... your filter are to backwash it, clean the manifolds and grids, and add new DE.

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Katodude]

You may also want to consider building one of those bucket iron filters. If the Polyfill will filter out iron it will get any micro plastics.

@PoolStored I forget the name of the member that is an expert at those. But we should consider a wiki on a polyfilled bucket complete with the materials required and assembly instructions.

 

[sande005]

It can take a while (days) for a filter to get all of it by itself. See various threads dealing with pollen and/or even dead algae. You've gotten good advice above - a slightly to moderately "dirty" filter filters better than a really clean one. Using DE helps jump start that process. If you have a main drain, turn it off to have all the water go through the skimmers - to better capture the floating bits. Depend on vacuuming to get that that settles to the bottom.
While there is no definitive test to prove you got it all - you can get a relative judgement if you have underwater lights. The particles may be too small to see themselves, or not enough to make a big visual difference, but the less hazy the water at night, the better the filtering is happening.
The other side is that there hasn't been much introduced into the pool. That's good in itself. Very little to accidentally ingest. But in relation to the total pool volume, it will just take longer for it to be all captured.

 

[Newdude]

I am basically at the point now where I've accepted the pool needs to be emptied, washed down, emptied, washed down lower down, emptied, etc to fix this

From a boogie board ? That you were totally fine with your kids playing with until now ?

Your winter cover of any style adds far more fibers as it breaks down over time than the 2 sq ft boogie board but you are consciously thinking of the boogie board so it seems terrible. I get it. I do. Buy you're trying too hard.

Your filter will remove the parts down to 30 microns or smaller. Add DE like said above to help speed it along

 

[Newdude]

As a side note, I'd never buy those from all the road rash they gave me as a kid. We literally lived in the water growing up on the beach like it was our full time job. So So much road rash from those things because my parents were too cheap to buy the name brand boogieboards that didn't have the tarp wrap on them.

 

[Newdude]

Sheesh. Now that you got me thinking about it, the 'good' boogie boards are the same $45 they were when my parents mortgage was $230. If they were 20% of my mortgage they'd be about $750 and I wouldn't be buying them for my kids either, presumably made by Apple at that point.

 

[Newdude]

But back on topic, your winter cover, pool noodles and various other toys, the elastic in all the suits breaking down and plenty of other things all shed into the pool.

The internet has everyone worried about microplastics and to some extent it's a good thing, but this is a non issue.

 

[ajw22]

.@PoolStored I forget the name of the member that is an expert at those. But we should consider a wiki on a polyfilled bucket complete with the materials required and assembly instructions.

It is in Iron Fill Water Filter - Further Reading

If you’ve got iron in your fill water, use Polyfill to remove it

EDIT: Found out this method only works if your iron is oxidized already, meaning it’s got a dull or bright green tint to the water, or a nasty brown tint. If you know you have iron in your fill water, but it isn’t oxidized yet, bring your pool to shock level and it’ll turn the telltale green...

www.troublefreepool.com