Why do they still dye the rivers green for St. Patricks Day? It's not a good look for downtown Chicago.
Why do they still dye the rivers green for St. Patricks Day? It's not a good look for downtown Chicago.
I just think the novelty of these type of displays was up in the 90s, It's time for an upgrayedd. I propose leprechauns flying up and down the river wearing water jet packs, shooting people with their Chicago-style hot dog cannons would be more with the times. What's your idea?
Fun fact: It’s actually beneficial that they do this because they use Gatorade which has electrolytes and as we all know, that’s what the plants crave.
I don’t remember the comedian, but I remember the joke:
“If they can dye it green for St. Patrick’s Day, why can’t they dye it blue the other days of the year?”
Isn't that from the fugitive?
Maybe, I don’t remember. I thought it was from a comedian, but I could be wrong. (Memory isn’t what it used to be. 🤷🏻)
Blue-gitive.
Yes. I was thinking of that line from the movie when I read the OP.
I've seen apartment complexes that have little fake ponds and rivers flowing throughout the grounds that are dyed blue. It doesn't look good. It looks like the water with that cheap toilet bowl cleaner in it.
The crowds it attracts today still are huge. What do you mean the novelty has worn down? I have lived in the area since 2012 and I still haven’t gone down to see this because I don’t want to deal with the crowds.
On another note, I guess I’ll be there in a jiffy if they shot me with an Italian beef - wet (not from the river) and lots of giardiniera.
Yes, Italian beef for St. Patricks day. Hahaha.
In all honesty I wouldn’t blame you or Chicago, they are super delish. (Edit grammar)
Italian beef - wet
Ahh yes! The only correct way to eat ur Italian beef.
Fuck yeah. What's your preferred place to get from? Johnnies is the one I'm most familiar with and enjoy.
Johnnies all the way.
Cheesy, no peppers for me. But if they wrapped them in paper and shot them with a T-shirt gun, I guarantee it would be popular.
This is really making me miss home. Maybe I'll move back in a few years.
Head over to the unpopular opinion group, you're not asking a question, you're stating an opinion.
I'm asking you why they do this when it looks like crap? People actually like seeing a neon green river? What is wrong with those people? See, 3 valid questions.
Yeah, if I see a green river I think pollution.
As a Dubliner (Ireland, not one of the many Dublins across the pond), I must say that Americans are really weird about Paddy's Day. We have a large parade in Dublin and smaller ones in smaller cities, and then those of us who have kids ho to family fairs, and the rest for a pint at the local. We leave the city centre to the tourists who get shitfaced on overpriced, prepoured Guinness for no good reason. And even though we did some weird things with our river (the time in the slime), we never dyed the Liffey green.
Americans look for any reason to get shitfaced. Ask anyone what Cinco de Mayo is about about. Most wont have any clue.
St. Patrick's Day in America has always been more of a celebration of Irish-American immigrant culture than it is of Ireland itself.
I mean.. Other than them dying that shit green none of that sounds that different from what goes on over here in general
Can't argue with that. I never really paid attention to Paddy's Day while I was in the US, so all I have to go by are the news reports (which may be a bit sensationalist).
We have a lot of people who live far from their country of origin, so they get really excited when they get to celebrate their heritage and get a special national holiday. Then of course the rest of us Americans love a good time and excuse to party, so we love celebrating alongside them. It's all in good fun. When I was younger, there was a whole neighborhood that went off the hook for stuff like St. Patrick's Day, Mardi Gras, and stuff like that. My friends and I would always be so excited to go down there and party it up. It's a really good time for everyone involved.
Here in the states St. Patrick's day is more about Mad Sweeney from American Gods or The Lucky Charms mascot than it is about the guy who invented the Shamrock as a Catholic mnemonic. Go to your local department store like Target or Walmart and look for St. Patrick's Day seasonals and you'll find four-leaf clovers where shamrocks should be.
We can't tell the difference and don't really care. We'll just take our kids to McDonalds to get a minty milkshake.
The whole French thing is so goddamn funny, from an outside perspective - I mean, France is basically one of the few major countries the USA never fought a land or proxy war against - their only war was the Quasi war which was solely smaller naval battles and was clearly the US fault. And France was almost always willing to back the US…while the US let them down countless times.
A vile, "minty" milkshake.
In Liverpool, which prides itself on its Liverpool roots, Paddy's Day is one of the days to avoid town and most of the pubs for me. Absolute carnage. The other ones to avoid are Grand National weekend, particularly Ladies Day, and Mother's Day.
This causes no harm to the wildlife and is a fun celebration. People here are always talking about "let people enjoy things" when that thing is some counter-culture thing. Well, I say let people enjoy things, even when that thing is a mainstream holiday. Have some fun. Let loose.
I don't mean to sound all new agey, but I feel like we're disrespecting the planet by dyeing a freakin river.
I think that's nothing compared to all the, y'know, irreparable destruction and pollution we do to the to the planet tbh.
In what capacity is it anymore disrespect than doing literally anything else?
A recent article asking the same thing on Tampa Bay's activities
While there doesn't seem to be obvious red flags of harm, something doesn't feel right to me about dumping chemicals into the environment that eventually break down. The article says the company making this particular dye warns about it in higher quantities or letting it become concentrated in places downstream, and wearing protective equipment when handling the larger amounts. How much of that is only legalize to protect from misuse vs. actual tested issues?
The deadly chemical known as Dihydrogen Monoxide absolutely fills that river, you know? Might want to keep your distance.
It's wasteful and a bad look, but many things are only hazardous in high concentrations. Even a tanker full of milk getting dumped into a small lake could cause mass die offs. The PPE is probably more about preventing it from being breathed in or getting in their mouths. You can check out the SDS here.
Would any animals in the water not breathe it in or get it in their mouth?
I don't care so much about the novelty. I want to know what impacts this has on the environment.
I assume it's been studied to be non-toxic for fish. Or at least I hope it has. But what about other effects it might have? Does it significantly reduce visibility and impact the ecosystem in that way? Some other effects?
Pretty sure you can eat Fluorescein with no ill effects other than turning your piss dayglo. It's very widely used as a 'non-toxic' tracer dye so I'd imagine studies have been done.
Tribal custom. They do it because they’ve always done it.
Upgrayedds not gonna be too happy about this.
How is it not a good look?
Well I live near an actual toxic river that has been cleaning up lately. I just think dying it green makes it look gross, maybe it's time to projection map it green or give everyone green tinted glasses so then everything is green and you don't have to make the river an oooz color.
leprechauns flying up and down the river wearing water jet packs, shooting people with their Chicago-style hot dog cannons
I mean, they're not mutually-exclusive. You can do both.
I this what you want?
Well I don't know about anyone else, but I certainly do.
Wrong one
I want to see this,
better yet, make a green dye outta algae, so that it actually does something other than look interesting. And knowing how rivers in cities work, it's polluted enough that algae will die off withing a few days tops, so it'd be efficient
It'd be bad. Real bad. An algae bloom of massive proportions. It has one huge issue.
Enough algae to make the rivers run green will use up enough oxygen at night to kill off fish and oxygen hungry invertebrates, starting a chain reaction of death.
Now you have a river full of dead organisms, so they start decomposing thanks to microbes. You know what many types of bacteria love? Oxygen. So they start using up oxygen, multiplying all the while. Night hits and the algae need to use oxygen, but a bunch die because there's not enough. Now the river is full of literally hundreds, maybe thousands of tons of decomposing matter. The river largely goes anoxic (meaning there's no oxygen) so things start dying left and right. A bunch of those bacteria can live with and without oxygen, so they use up what they can and keep on chugging without.
Now we've moved from aerobic respiration to anaerobic. You know what the primary byproducts of anaerobic respiration are? Organic acids and alcohols, which smell. The river begins to smell like an infected wound. It's no longer green but deep, murky brown from the suspension of decomposing organisms. This continues until the river flushes everything out, but it kills what's downstream as it continues until it hits the ocean, where it likely continues to kill everything in the vicinity until it becomes dilute enough.
I'm a microbiologist and worked with algae and cyanobacteria as an undergrad. Never underestimate the impact of uncountable billions of trillions of living organisms.
Using green algae with what's happening in Lough Neagh would be a bad look.
But perfectly on brand for the plastic Paddy's.
Release the Lepredrones!
The people who make the green dye are probably perpetuating it because it means an influx in dye sales.
All this strikes up another good question, why don't they dye it gold for Oktoberfest, red for Dyngus Day, etc.? It seems incredibly overshadowing one culture in a multicultural city has outright terraforming privileges while others get a couple of tiny cornerstreets to call home once a year.
Because tracing dye is originally green. It's just a happy coincidence that it ended up working for Saint Patricks day.
More people should celebrate dyngus day
I used to go to the national parades for them because they're nearby. It's very nice.
It's the hotdog cannons that really made this fly for me.
In case it’s not just a typo, it’s “upgrade” not “upgrayedd”
May I recommend the movie Idiocracy to you? You will be one of today's lucky 10,000
Screw little rivers. Dye the oceans green.
I want XKCD to do the math on this one
3.52 x 10^(20) gallons according to the US national parks service.
The first Amazon result says a gallon works for 12000 (1.2 x10^4). So 3 x 10^(16). But that might be just for "detectable", so more to be obviously green.