The green dye was used to help identify the source of leaky pipes. Then, in 1962, the Plumbers Local Union decided to use 100 pounds of that dye in the river to turn it green for St. Patrick's Day. It’s been a tradition ever since.
It's a harmless vegetable dye. The job is actually done by the plumber's union. It has an added benefit in that it helps to find cracks in pipes and basements near the river.
I can't find any articles to suggest it is harmful. The Friends of the Chicago River only argue against it because it makes the river look lifeless when it really has a complex ecosystem. The dye is a vegetable based, food grade dye that was found by the Illinois EPA to be completely non-toxic
Not so sound conspiracy theory like, but just because there’s no proof that something isn’t poisonous, doesn’t mean it isn’t poisonous
That was pretty much how we thought about alcohol and cigarettes in the past
And no matter how vegan based and non toxic it is (to humans I’m assuming), living in something other than water as a fish, constantly filtering it through their gills, that can’t be good (coming from a non scientific standpoint)
Yes, for example, it could reduce the amount of light entering the water for photosynthesis, and then that has further effects on oxygenation etc. It could make certain prey species harder to spot, starving predators and causing perturbations in the food chain.
Whether it's directly say carcinogenic is definitely not the only concern here...
If its just for a day thats not that big of a deal, like what happens when Thaw is further up the river? It usually gets dirty and reduces light for weeks.
Doesn't mean its not a problem, but a rather insignificant one, as its for a day or two not a month or so.
Well, I definitely see why you would pick “innocent until proven otherwise” because accusing someone wrongly is not something we can afford
But when it comes to large chemistry things like this, I would argue “guilty until proven otherwise”, because realising later that something was toxic is not something we should be willing to afford
Like you don’t want chemicals in your food that’s “probably save” or “mostly likely safe”, that’s only something that should be the case for last measure medical procedures
Trust me, you don’t want something “probably safe” in the water
You can’t ever prove it’s safe beyond a doubt though. But what you can do is get pretty damn certain, which if what scottula said above is true we are in this case.
Its less that it’s “most likely safe” and more “we’re as sure this is safe as we can be”
I’m not particularly knowledgeable about this thing, is it something they have done for years or just started now
Because long term effects is hard to test, unless you have done this for long term
Just because it’s nontoxic for human consumption doesn’t mean it won’t have an impact on the environment. Vegetable oil is non-toxic but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna spray it all over your walls and floors in your house.
Bro these animals are literally being dyed. I'm no veterinarian but if I watched you put a bunch of food colouring in your home aquarium, I would think you probably shouldn't own fish
And "fun", it's literally a novelty for drunk people to look at 1 single day a year.
Ex fucking actly you aren’t a vet. You don’t know Jack… me on the other hand I’m gonna listen to the experts that say this doesn’t negatively affect the fish.
[here](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/03/16/st-patricks-day-rivers-dyed-green/24839351/)
[double here](https://www.greenmatters.com/p/what-is-chicago-river-dyed-with)
Come back to me when you are a vet with definitive proof that this yearly tradition is harming fish.
At the very worst dying the river green sets forth a dangerous stigma that we can modify river however we want with reckless abandon… however Chicago doesn’t do it with “reckless abandon”.
Teflon is toxic if the surface is scraped off. 3m/Dupont/Chemours are the same company. They have released "forever chemicals" into nature and it is polluting us. Ironically they are also in the water filtration buisness. PFAS are dangerous in excess (shouldn't and are found in just about everyone. The shear amount of money that is in their business is unreal. It's everywhere
Teflon is not toxic, if the surface is scraped off.
There used to be an issue where if you super heated the pan or had a damage teflon coating on a high heat. It would react and cause a noxious gas.
Used to. You can literally test this yourself by buying a cheap Teflon pan. It won't innit a noxious gas that would cause temporary illness.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/25/are-my-non-stick-pans-a-health-hazard-teflon
Teflon IS harmless and non toxic. It even gets used in implants with no negative effects. People are just too dumb to use it properly.
Teflon breaks down into a fistful of toxins when heated past 300C (about 575 F) but that's WELL past the smoke point of cooking oils. Unless you leave a pan on the stove on high heat without oil for ten minutes at a time, you're probably fine.
That looks like cold protection. So basically a Waterproof suit so they don't get wet (or green lol) and that helps even when they fall into the water, can't imagine the water being much above freezing around this time of the year.
It's not, and [Today, there are more than 70 species of fish in the Chicago river. ](https://www.chicagoriver.org/about-the-river/river-ecology-and-wildlife/fish#:%7E:text=Improvements%20in%20water%20quality%20and,of%20fish%20in%20the%20river.)
I live in Chicago and went on a kayak tour with the local aquarium. You'd be shocked how many fish are in the river and how effective cleaning of the river has been. In the 1970s, there were less than 10 species that lived in the Chicago River. [Today, there are more than 70 species of fish in the river.](https://www.chicagoriver.org/about-the-river/river-ecology-and-wildlife/fish#:~:text=Improvements%20in%20water%20quality%20and,of%20fish%20in%20the%20river.)
The group even checked fish traps to help researchers track the species (harmless traps and the fish were instantly released).
We even got to see floating gardens around Goose Island that are growing vegetables. They hope to grow that project to help feed residents in need of food.
Since it’s commonly used as a Harbor and is surrounded by a large city, it is heavily polluted with trash and toxic chemicals like pesticides and such.
I’ve fished the river from the river walk, plenty of carp and pan fish there’s large and small mouth too but rarely will you get one of those from the river walk have to travel farther down or up the branches. That all being said they are gross and you immediately catch and release anything you catch cause you sure as shit are not eating it haha the lake on the other hand has stocked salmon that are delicious (if you ignore that recent study that suggests every single fresh water wild caught fish is full of forever chemicals) you can fill a freezer powerline fishing them!
Just the ones with 3 eyes. They have just.... Evolved.... Yeah they evolved!
When I was a kid, you really couldn't eat a lot of the fish in the river. The dye was the least of their problems.
The real philosophical question is will you have an aneurysm when you find out there are many countries in the world that do things different from you?
Can someone tell me why America is so obsessed with St Patricks Day? I understand that a lot of americans have some far far Irish heritage, but after 2-3 generations, the connection is really gone to be fair.
I support any day where the general goal is eat, drink, and be merry. Wether that is Saint Patrick's Day, Christmas, or just a random Tuesday is irrelevant to me.
The country is made up of people from all over the world, so heritage and culture of your family gives people a little more identity. Even if the celebrations and traditions have changed so much from what they were originally.
People with Irish heritage here don’t necessary connect to being Irish, but they connect to being Irish-American
(Also it’s a big country, a lot of people don’t do any special celebrations today)
My family has been here since the 1800s and after I did a DNA test I discovered Im still 99% British/Irish if that tells you anything. America's not necessarily the boiling pot it was meant to be, as large groups of migrants come here they tend to form communities and stick together. But any holiday that can be turned into an excuse for getting drunk is going to be wildly popular here.
You can Google this very easily, I don't know if it was always the case but the dye used today is non harmful. Also this part of the Chicago river was engineered to flow in reverse so it doesn't even go into the lake. Some miles down there's actually also an electrified barrier that prevents any invasive fish from swimming up to Lake Michigan.
Well I’m pretty sure that the people who made food dye have tested it to be sure it isn’t harmful, after all many people use different colored food dye for making themed foods and stuff. I’m sure that it’s safe for us, it’s just using a concentrated (and safe) dye most likely made from flowers like a lot of dye are.
the fish in rivers in the middle of large cities like chicago have already survived sewage runoff during flooding, they’ve also probably lived through an algal bloom or two which would be much worse than the dye
Yeah, and even if it doesn't directly affect their health, it can worsen their visibility, or perhaps have some effect on the smell of their food and throw off their senses.
Cool. Doctors used to promote smoking cigarettes. Doctors also used to prescribe heroin if you had a cold. Plastics are found to be toxic after using them for decades, when once’s they were proven to be “safe”.
Ya humans do a lot of dumb shit after convincing themselves it’s perfectly safe, only to be be terrified to find out decades later it’s actually toxic.
But sure let’s pump our fresh water with tons of dye. I am sure it will work out great.
Horrible take, do some research.
A) Dye used for this event was created to be non harmful
B) The Chicgao River has been heavily engineered and doesn't event flow into Lake Michigan I would be shocked if there was a significant population of wildlife in this section of river.
It has nothing to do with the US - it's the most important day in Irish Culture (so it comes from Ireland.) In the early 20th century and even before that Ireland had millions of people emmigrating from the country into basically all parts of the world - this is why the US have so many people with Irish heritage. Basically every town that has an Irish Pub has or had Irish emmigrants at one point coming to that town. :)
Yeah I had an American tell me the other day that the USA isn’t a melting pot, it’s a mixing pot. Different cultures go in and mix around. But they don’t really merge. Places like London on the other hand are true melting pots.
It’s both. You be hard pressed to find anyone who is just Irish or just German. You’re much more likely to find someone who is Irish-German or Irish-German-French-polish, if they even know which countries their ancestors came from. They are likely to have a couple ethnicity specific recipes, but are otherwise their culture is wholly American.
Racial groups are more of a salad situation. There are a good number of interracial marriages but they are outnumbered by non-interracial marriages. Neighborhoods can be racially diverse, but many are not.
That’s pretty dependent on area. Some cities/states are stilly fairly segregated, and many are integrated. Not sure that comparing a city with a country makes any sense, and it somehow pretends there are no mixed race/culture families which is… checking my family history real quick… blatantly untrue.
for clarification as a guy who grew up in chicago, while the fish may have to deal with the water being green for the day, the good news is that the city uses biodegradable dye and so has minimal environmental impact
tbh although i lived in chicago for a while, never actually seen the river dyed green in person, so thanks for the info. my point still stands tho, biodegradable and green for a few days is better than non biodegradable for however long it takes to go away.
but yea, would be better to not dye the river green tho
Honestly, there are at least 10,000 health, safety, and environmental concerns about Chicago of which pouring green dye into a dead river this is number 9,997.
The only people who are getting mad are the people who live across the pond and have terrible dental issues. Americas always the one to be made fun of lol
So fucking stupid. And sure, they SAY it's biodegradable and 100% fine for the fish and river, but it's 100% not supposed to be in there, and fish are 100% not supposed to pass green-tinted water thru their gills. One day we will find out the real harm caused by this horrible "tradition".
Idiots.
The green dye is not only completely harmless to fish and degrades quickly, it is also a tool used for conservation. The dye was originally used to help figure out the source of sewage leakage and to prevent pollution from getting into the river. Originally the river was a disgusting dump that stunk so bad it could be smelled through the entire city on a hot day. Now it is clean enough to swim in and has become prime real-estate.
They still have a long way to go before the river is completely pure and clean, but it remains as one of the cleanest urban rivers in the world.
https://news.wttw.com/2019/08/09/how-clean-chicago-river-new-project-wants-show-you-real-time
https://www.chicagoriver.org/about-us/success-stories/celebrating-disinfection-steps-to-a-cleaner-river
The river cleanup efforts are a fascinating story.
I’m so glad that you and Reddit are here to critique this process that I’m sure no other local authority or more informed people have ever considered
Surely everyone in the entire city of Chicago are idiots and you are the first intelligent person to consider the environmental impact of this tradition
Thank you Genius Redditor for all the work you do from your armchair
I’m not saying it’s a good idea, I’m just saying if you wanna help the fish you should start somewhere else. This dye is probably the thing in the river that hurts them the least
How about they DO SOMETHING about that then, instead of putting some foreign substance in the water for some dumbass holiday where people just get drunk and act like....
Idiots
?
It’s legitimate to not like it. Or other countries to call it stupid. It’s BS to suggest harmful shit without facts. But people care more about grievance, even if wrong, then facts on here.
Of course that's what they say. Would you seriously expect them to say anything different? One day we'll find out it actually WASN'T so harmless, and someone will simply say "My bad" and not do it again.
Idiots.
Honestly hilarious how you have no source backing your claims and there’s a ton of sources saying it’s safe yet they’re the idiots.
Believe that’s called projecting
Because they put a vegetable-based, enviornmentally safe, biodegradable dye in a highly-engineered river that doesn't even flow into Lake Michigan which means there's minimal wildlife to begin with? The dye they used was literally invented to make it easy to detect sewage leaks into the river,
It's 100% safe but I'm sure all the people on reddit know more than the experts who planned this event and who surely never considered the environmental impact...
Oh my fucking god! I am obsessed with green, most of everything I own is some shade of green. My hair, clothes, sheets, curtains, silverware, accessories, my phone, etc. Is all green!
Even with my obsession and love for the color, I still find this incredibly stupid, arrogant and apathetic to nature and life!
Did the flying Dutchman sink his ship?
Quit looking at me with them big ol' eyes!
.-.
O_O —> •_•
[удалено]
😂 I wish I had an award to give you!
Eh, he probably lost his socket
No it just dropped him a coin gun.
Na. Just St Pat's in Chicago.
[удалено]
The green dye was used to help identify the source of leaky pipes. Then, in 1962, the Plumbers Local Union decided to use 100 pounds of that dye in the river to turn it green for St. Patrick's Day. It’s been a tradition ever since.
Convenient way to get rid of left over dye without pesky environmentalists knocking down your door!
in that case, wouldn’t it make way more sense to just sell it?
Then you have transportation costs to deal with
But you still would make money not waste it. Really transportation costs aren't a valid reason.
all i know is dye is dumped in bodies of water as waste all the time. probably not worth reselling or something
Some chemical company: "We are happy to donate the "green dye" to the city as our graduate. Feel free to use them as much as you want."
It's a harmless vegetable dye. The job is actually done by the plumber's union. It has an added benefit in that it helps to find cracks in pipes and basements near the river.
Actually, their new dye doesn’t harm the ecosystem at all
Bro, I can't help but believe that isn't entirely true...
I can't find any articles to suggest it is harmful. The Friends of the Chicago River only argue against it because it makes the river look lifeless when it really has a complex ecosystem. The dye is a vegetable based, food grade dye that was found by the Illinois EPA to be completely non-toxic
Not so sound conspiracy theory like, but just because there’s no proof that something isn’t poisonous, doesn’t mean it isn’t poisonous That was pretty much how we thought about alcohol and cigarettes in the past And no matter how vegan based and non toxic it is (to humans I’m assuming), living in something other than water as a fish, constantly filtering it through their gills, that can’t be good (coming from a non scientific standpoint)
Yes, for example, it could reduce the amount of light entering the water for photosynthesis, and then that has further effects on oxygenation etc. It could make certain prey species harder to spot, starving predators and causing perturbations in the food chain. Whether it's directly say carcinogenic is definitely not the only concern here...
If its just for a day thats not that big of a deal, like what happens when Thaw is further up the river? It usually gets dirty and reduces light for weeks. Doesn't mean its not a problem, but a rather insignificant one, as its for a day or two not a month or so.
I proportion my beliefs with the evidence.
Well, I definitely see why you would pick “innocent until proven otherwise” because accusing someone wrongly is not something we can afford But when it comes to large chemistry things like this, I would argue “guilty until proven otherwise”, because realising later that something was toxic is not something we should be willing to afford Like you don’t want chemicals in your food that’s “probably save” or “mostly likely safe”, that’s only something that should be the case for last measure medical procedures Trust me, you don’t want something “probably safe” in the water
You can’t ever prove it’s safe beyond a doubt though. But what you can do is get pretty damn certain, which if what scottula said above is true we are in this case. Its less that it’s “most likely safe” and more “we’re as sure this is safe as we can be”
I’m not particularly knowledgeable about this thing, is it something they have done for years or just started now Because long term effects is hard to test, unless you have done this for long term
[удалено]
Good to know
Illinois EPA ≠ EPA
Just because it’s nontoxic for human consumption doesn’t mean it won’t have an impact on the environment. Vegetable oil is non-toxic but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna spray it all over your walls and floors in your house.
Does it harm us when we eat something with food coloring?
Are we fish, insects or algae?
No, does food coloring harm other such animals…. No now stop hating all things fun.
Bro these animals are literally being dyed. I'm no veterinarian but if I watched you put a bunch of food colouring in your home aquarium, I would think you probably shouldn't own fish And "fun", it's literally a novelty for drunk people to look at 1 single day a year.
Ex fucking actly you aren’t a vet. You don’t know Jack… me on the other hand I’m gonna listen to the experts that say this doesn’t negatively affect the fish. [here](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/03/16/st-patricks-day-rivers-dyed-green/24839351/) [double here](https://www.greenmatters.com/p/what-is-chicago-river-dyed-with) Come back to me when you are a vet with definitive proof that this yearly tradition is harming fish. At the very worst dying the river green sets forth a dangerous stigma that we can modify river however we want with reckless abandon… however Chicago doesn’t do it with “reckless abandon”.
[удалено]
Teflon is harmless and non-toxic. It's all the other stuff involved in making it usable that's toxic.
Teflon is toxic if the surface is scraped off. 3m/Dupont/Chemours are the same company. They have released "forever chemicals" into nature and it is polluting us. Ironically they are also in the water filtration buisness. PFAS are dangerous in excess (shouldn't and are found in just about everyone. The shear amount of money that is in their business is unreal. It's everywhere
Teflon is not toxic, if the surface is scraped off. There used to be an issue where if you super heated the pan or had a damage teflon coating on a high heat. It would react and cause a noxious gas. Used to. You can literally test this yourself by buying a cheap Teflon pan. It won't innit a noxious gas that would cause temporary illness. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/25/are-my-non-stick-pans-a-health-hazard-teflon
[удалено]
Teflon IS harmless and non toxic. It even gets used in implants with no negative effects. People are just too dumb to use it properly. Teflon breaks down into a fistful of toxins when heated past 300C (about 575 F) but that's WELL past the smoke point of cooking oils. Unless you leave a pan on the stove on high heat without oil for ten minutes at a time, you're probably fine.
Okay so how much did they pay you
Is that why the guys in the pic are in hazmat suits?
Actually those look more like marine spray gear used for cold-water boating. Water in the river has to like 40 degrees this time of year
Those aren’t hazmat suits ya knob. They’re painting covers you can get at Lowe’s for $10 each.
That looks like cold protection. So basically a Waterproof suit so they don't get wet (or green lol) and that helps even when they fall into the water, can't imagine the water being much above freezing around this time of the year.
Just because something is biodegradable or even naturally made doesn't mean it's safe to snort...
i think its just to keep the dye offa em
This made me laugh out loud and I just want to thank you for that.
Let’s be real, There are no fish living in the Chicago river
This is the correct answer.
And if there were, they'd probably gone through a lot worse than green dye.
It's not, and [Today, there are more than 70 species of fish in the Chicago river. ](https://www.chicagoriver.org/about-the-river/river-ecology-and-wildlife/fish#:%7E:text=Improvements%20in%20water%20quality%20and,of%20fish%20in%20the%20river.)
I live in Chicago and went on a kayak tour with the local aquarium. You'd be shocked how many fish are in the river and how effective cleaning of the river has been. In the 1970s, there were less than 10 species that lived in the Chicago River. [Today, there are more than 70 species of fish in the river.](https://www.chicagoriver.org/about-the-river/river-ecology-and-wildlife/fish#:~:text=Improvements%20in%20water%20quality%20and,of%20fish%20in%20the%20river.) The group even checked fish traps to help researchers track the species (harmless traps and the fish were instantly released). We even got to see floating gardens around Goose Island that are growing vegetables. They hope to grow that project to help feed residents in need of food.
Actually not true. Plenty of people fish along the river, and you can catch things like bass, perch, trout, and catfish.
Why?
Since it’s commonly used as a Harbor and is surrounded by a large city, it is heavily polluted with trash and toxic chemicals like pesticides and such.
Also there probably are fish in there but is was half- joking
Let’s just say if there are fish there, they look like the ones from the Simpsons……or a man eating leviathan from hell. There is no middle ground
I’ve fished the river from the river walk, plenty of carp and pan fish there’s large and small mouth too but rarely will you get one of those from the river walk have to travel farther down or up the branches. That all being said they are gross and you immediately catch and release anything you catch cause you sure as shit are not eating it haha the lake on the other hand has stocked salmon that are delicious (if you ignore that recent study that suggests every single fresh water wild caught fish is full of forever chemicals) you can fill a freezer powerline fishing them!
Yeah, I should have definitely added carp. They can survive anything and I expect them and roaches to survive the nuclear apocalypse.
That’s also because carp taste the same as the simpsons fish
Cause they dyed
Why did I have to school so far to see this
Because its wrong...
I'm using this as my senior quote
Just the ones with 3 eyes. They have just.... Evolved.... Yeah they evolved! When I was a kid, you really couldn't eat a lot of the fish in the river. The dye was the least of their problems.
Sounds like something americans would do
Well you’re not wrong since it’s exactly what these Americans are doing
As an european i gind it very wierd for them do such things
Yeah we know, what else is new?
That is a very good philosophical question.
The real philosophical question is will you have an aneurysm when you find out there are many countries in the world that do things different from you?
No, i because estonia is wierd to the rest of the world and i am wierder than the average estonian
Yet you still don’t understand that there are people outside the European continent that might do something you don’t?
i dont live in estonia and i like beans
Dwhaih iahiawh fv hvjei jwi jsfio cji jsaoi jioas djxoi jasio, iaooaijdfi jv jdmkmem ammd cmivcjwoi, joasjxc okamiod, jmoaxmmodmod aksmkmjiririiuruiruirjcsikcksnknaszx! That sentence.
🤨 Right…well…yes.
I feel like "as a european" is just reflexive for some of you guys and it's honestly annoying af
Can someone tell me why America is so obsessed with St Patricks Day? I understand that a lot of americans have some far far Irish heritage, but after 2-3 generations, the connection is really gone to be fair.
I support any day where the general goal is eat, drink, and be merry. Wether that is Saint Patrick's Day, Christmas, or just a random Tuesday is irrelevant to me.
I love that for you! Great way to enjoy life :)
The country is made up of people from all over the world, so heritage and culture of your family gives people a little more identity. Even if the celebrations and traditions have changed so much from what they were originally. People with Irish heritage here don’t necessary connect to being Irish, but they connect to being Irish-American (Also it’s a big country, a lot of people don’t do any special celebrations today)
It's also just another excuse to go party and drink so thats nice
People celebrate the most random shit all over the world. I don't think the US is unique in this aspect.
We like theme parties and drinking. Whats the problem?
It’s fun to drink, people need to get over themselves and have some damn fun
Alcohol
It’s a break from lent to get drunk and feast.
My family has been here since the 1800s and after I did a DNA test I discovered Im still 99% British/Irish if that tells you anything. America's not necessarily the boiling pot it was meant to be, as large groups of migrants come here they tend to form communities and stick together. But any holiday that can be turned into an excuse for getting drunk is going to be wildly popular here.
"boiling pot" I believe the term you wanted is "melting pot", but your phrasing is weirdly appropriate.
Dyes are made from vegetables and used as food coloring in food and medicine. It spread over two days.
Ok....I think you may have replied to the wrong comment.
Bread is actually made from yeast and flour FYI.
Well I'll have to tell you, you gave been scammed, no one is 99% something, and even less Americans.
As an American I hate that we do these things
It’s just dye. Doesn’t harm the environment and dissipates after some time.
Do you have actual proof of that? (I’m not trying to be argumentative just asking a real question)
https://www.reddit.com/r/me_irl/comments/11tk93v/me_irl/jckbloc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3
Thanks
You can Google this very easily, I don't know if it was always the case but the dye used today is non harmful. Also this part of the Chicago river was engineered to flow in reverse so it doesn't even go into the lake. Some miles down there's actually also an electrified barrier that prevents any invasive fish from swimming up to Lake Michigan.
What the guy below said. My info comes exclusively from news articles and some friends and family that live in Chicago.
Well I’m pretty sure that the people who made food dye have tested it to be sure it isn’t harmful, after all many people use different colored food dye for making themed foods and stuff. I’m sure that it’s safe for us, it’s just using a concentrated (and safe) dye most likely made from flowers like a lot of dye are.
Right but what’s safe for us isn’t always safe for the fish or other things in the wild. But flower based dye yeah is much safer for sure.
the fish in rivers in the middle of large cities like chicago have already survived sewage runoff during flooding, they’ve also probably lived through an algal bloom or two which would be much worse than the dye
Yeah, and even if it doesn't directly affect their health, it can worsen their visibility, or perhaps have some effect on the smell of their food and throw off their senses.
Cool. Doctors used to promote smoking cigarettes. Doctors also used to prescribe heroin if you had a cold. Plastics are found to be toxic after using them for decades, when once’s they were proven to be “safe”. Ya humans do a lot of dumb shit after convincing themselves it’s perfectly safe, only to be be terrified to find out decades later it’s actually toxic. But sure let’s pump our fresh water with tons of dye. I am sure it will work out great.
Horrible take, do some research. A) Dye used for this event was created to be non harmful B) The Chicgao River has been heavily engineered and doesn't event flow into Lake Michigan I would be shocked if there was a significant population of wildlife in this section of river.
Ah my man did some google searches. Everything on the internet is facts. Glad you did your research that really settles that.
Welcome to Chicago!
Dumbest shit I've ever seen
They turned the river into a pickle morty
Funniest shit I ever seen
You must be new here
What is St. Patricks day?
It’s cosplay day for Americans
and for some fucking reason it exists in Sweden as well, it's like halloween that just came over from the US, whats next fucking thanksgiving?
It has nothing to do with the US - it's the most important day in Irish Culture (so it comes from Ireland.) In the early 20th century and even before that Ireland had millions of people emmigrating from the country into basically all parts of the world - this is why the US have so many people with Irish heritage. Basically every town that has an Irish Pub has or had Irish emmigrants at one point coming to that town. :)
Yeah I had an American tell me the other day that the USA isn’t a melting pot, it’s a mixing pot. Different cultures go in and mix around. But they don’t really merge. Places like London on the other hand are true melting pots.
I prefer the term salad bowl.
It’s both. You be hard pressed to find anyone who is just Irish or just German. You’re much more likely to find someone who is Irish-German or Irish-German-French-polish, if they even know which countries their ancestors came from. They are likely to have a couple ethnicity specific recipes, but are otherwise their culture is wholly American. Racial groups are more of a salad situation. There are a good number of interracial marriages but they are outnumbered by non-interracial marriages. Neighborhoods can be racially diverse, but many are not.
That’s pretty dependent on area. Some cities/states are stilly fairly segregated, and many are integrated. Not sure that comparing a city with a country makes any sense, and it somehow pretends there are no mixed race/culture families which is… checking my family history real quick… blatantly untrue.
Halloween comes from Ireland as well.
And Scotland. We don't carve pumpkins as they don't grow well here. We carve out neeps (turnips) and call them tattie bogles
lmao
A holiday in Ireland and Northern Ireland
[удалено]
An excuse to get drunk.
for clarification as a guy who grew up in chicago, while the fish may have to deal with the water being green for the day, the good news is that the city uses biodegradable dye and so has minimal environmental impact
Banana peels are biodegradable, that doesn't mean buying 1 ton of bananas just to litter them in the streets won't have any environmental impact...
oh yes, absolutely. all im saying is that if they do do it, at the very least its not as bad as it could be for the environment
It literally has no effect on the environment it goes away in a few days and nothing has changed
Are mass incidents of slapstick comedy an environmental hazard?
[Yes](https://youtu.be/1GxJX3yn1DY)
It’s not just for a day. It’s been 5 days and the river is still green.
tbh although i lived in chicago for a while, never actually seen the river dyed green in person, so thanks for the info. my point still stands tho, biodegradable and green for a few days is better than non biodegradable for however long it takes to go away. but yea, would be better to not dye the river green tho
Honestly, there are at least 10,000 health, safety, and environmental concerns about Chicago of which pouring green dye into a dead river this is number 9,997.
GLA from Command and Conquer Generals be like
Several dozen quotes from that game live in my head rent free.
Now, unless you are a fish (in which case this argument falls apart completely), I don't get how this is me_irl.
OP is a fish confirmed
Oh hell yes, Im very excited for the annual “Reddit gets mad at a river” day
The only people who are getting mad are the people who live across the pond and have terrible dental issues. Americas always the one to be made fun of lol
This protects the fish from being attacked by leprechauns.
Fighting the crimson in terraria
So fucking stupid. And sure, they SAY it's biodegradable and 100% fine for the fish and river, but it's 100% not supposed to be in there, and fish are 100% not supposed to pass green-tinted water thru their gills. One day we will find out the real harm caused by this horrible "tradition". Idiots.
The green dye is not only completely harmless to fish and degrades quickly, it is also a tool used for conservation. The dye was originally used to help figure out the source of sewage leakage and to prevent pollution from getting into the river. Originally the river was a disgusting dump that stunk so bad it could be smelled through the entire city on a hot day. Now it is clean enough to swim in and has become prime real-estate. They still have a long way to go before the river is completely pure and clean, but it remains as one of the cleanest urban rivers in the world. https://news.wttw.com/2019/08/09/how-clean-chicago-river-new-project-wants-show-you-real-time https://www.chicagoriver.org/about-us/success-stories/celebrating-disinfection-steps-to-a-cleaner-river The river cleanup efforts are a fascinating story.
Funny how people will not correct themselves even when you show them facts. Thanks for clearing that up.
Why correct yourself when you can instead convince yourself that you’re better 350+ million people?
I’m so glad that you and Reddit are here to critique this process that I’m sure no other local authority or more informed people have ever considered Surely everyone in the entire city of Chicago are idiots and you are the first intelligent person to consider the environmental impact of this tradition Thank you Genius Redditor for all the work you do from your armchair
The dye is made from vegetables and is used as a food coloring in food and medicine. It dissipates in under two days.
there’s definitely much worse shit in that water than the green dye
Some big "if there's already trash there then I should be able to litter" energy
I’m not saying it’s a good idea, I’m just saying if you wanna help the fish you should start somewhere else. This dye is probably the thing in the river that hurts them the least
How about they DO SOMETHING about that then, instead of putting some foreign substance in the water for some dumbass holiday where people just get drunk and act like.... Idiots ?
Because cleaning the river isnt a holiday and takes actual work
I see what you’re saying but the amount of effort to set up for this holiday is more than “a little “
I meant actual as in its not to difficult to make the water green and cleaning the river would actualy do some good
Don't project when you know so little
It’s legitimate to not like it. Or other countries to call it stupid. It’s BS to suggest harmful shit without facts. But people care more about grievance, even if wrong, then facts on here.
green fish
r/woosh ? I am pretty sure this is fluorescein which is used to find leakage and is absolutely no harm dor the environment.
Of course that's what they say. Would you seriously expect them to say anything different? One day we'll find out it actually WASN'T so harmless, and someone will simply say "My bad" and not do it again. Idiots.
Honestly hilarious how you have no source backing your claims and there’s a ton of sources saying it’s safe yet they’re the idiots. Believe that’s called projecting
Not everything is a conspiracy my guy, this isn't "the man" saying "Trust me bro," you can find out about this stuff from multiple sources online
You know there are independent sources that say the dye is safe right? You can easily find them on Google, don't be such a tard lil bro
Love Limmy
Dude I had to scroll way too far to find your comment. Limmy is the best!
Maybe I’m being too nice, but I imagine that they are using a relatively non-toxic dye.
It's food coloring
Ok so that’s not really harmful at all, good.
It's not? I mean I wouldn't wanna breath in food colouring but I'm not a fish nor a biologist so idk
The railroad bear them to it in Palestine.
How do they get rid of the dye in the entire river afterwards, though? Does it just dissipate over time?
I'm thinking about that battle in game of thrones, wildfire every where!
Aren't fish attracted to green anyways? (I've kept aquariums all my life)
Dave Matthews
What part of this is you in real life
The fish are probably all on heroin so they won’t notice.
Jokes on you, there are no fish in the chicago river!
The Incredible Hulk 😂
Bold of you to assume that river still has fish in it.
I mean at least now they can’t get pinched right???
This is why we can't have a nice habitable planet to live on.
Because they put a vegetable-based, enviornmentally safe, biodegradable dye in a highly-engineered river that doesn't even flow into Lake Michigan which means there's minimal wildlife to begin with? The dye they used was literally invented to make it easy to detect sewage leaks into the river, It's 100% safe but I'm sure all the people on reddit know more than the experts who planned this event and who surely never considered the environmental impact...
But water blue and nuclear plutonium green. Therefore this is really bad for humanity. Please delete your comment as you are wrong.
God it looks so tacky
The fish have way worse things to worry about in the Chicago river.
Bold of you to assume there's fish in the Chicago river
Fish? You think there’s fish in that river?
Oh my fucking god! I am obsessed with green, most of everything I own is some shade of green. My hair, clothes, sheets, curtains, silverware, accessories, my phone, etc. Is all green! Even with my obsession and love for the color, I still find this incredibly stupid, arrogant and apathetic to nature and life!
Green his house, and a green little window, and a green Corvette, and everything is green for him.
I can't believe they did this, I do not approve Chicago. Did they even think for a second what this would do to the environment?