What germs do you encounter daily?
02 November 2022
5min read time
Case Study
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If you feel the need to constantly wash or sanitise your hands don’t be afraid.
Due to the pandemic, there has been an increase and the need for the use of hand sanitisers and frequent hand washing but besides combatting coronavirus what other germs and bacteria do we encounter in our day-to-day activities that we aren’t aware of? To combat the spread of germs, being made aware of what high-touch surfaces to avoid or clean regularly can help keep you safe.
Phone
The thing that is glued to us daily is our mobile phones. According to a study conducted by Tajouri, Associate Professor from Bond University, on average for three hours every day people touch their phones and high users touch their mobile phones more than 5,000 times a day. This shows how frequently we are using our phones and how easily they can spread germs and bacteria.
A study conducted at the University of Arizona found that your phone is ten times dirtier than most toilet seats. According to Bobby Caina Calvan, your phone is covered in 25,127 bacteria per square inch in comparison to an average toilet that has 1,201 bacteria per square inch showing how dirty our phone is! However, the biggest culprit of transferring germs to your phone is our hands. Our hands are constantly in contact with various surfaces and if we don’t wash our hands each time, the germs transfer to our phones and rapidly grow each time.
Knob/Handle
The next things we encounter daily are doorknobs and handles. They are high-touch surfaces, even if they are constantly cleaned, they can be hard to be maintained due to the need to be constantly used. Krieder conducted a study at Penn State Behrend, where he swabbed a doorknob in front of a café. Krieder found that one swab filled the whole petri dish and it contained fourteen different colonies of bacteria that were living on the knob. Imagine only touching that door handle once and the number of bacteria that gets transferred to your hands. Bacteria also easily spread as we are touching our faces without even realising it.
Computer keyboard
If a knob and handle can house that many bacteria imagine your computer keyboard. You work on your keyboard sometimes even up to 10 hours a day. Always constantly being at your desk, you’re bound to eat and sneeze therefore transferring more bacteria unknowingly to your keyboard. Once these bacteria transfer and you’re using the keyboard again, this will transfer onto your hand and the virus just quickly spreads everywhere. A study at Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital found that a deadly virus; Staphylococcus aureus could survive for up to 24 hours on a keyboard, showing the need to always disinfect and clean your keyboard multiple times a day!
Toothbrush and toothbrush holder
Every time you pick up that toothbrush of yours do you consider what bacteria could be possibly living inside of that toothbrush? Mould grows into places that have moisture. The toothbrush you are using is always moist and barely cleaned properly. In the drying of your toothbrush, the brush may be growing fungus and mould as it slowly dries.
Furthermore, if you are leaving your toothbrush where you use the toilet, this could increase the spread of bacteria on your brush. Every time a toilet is being used and once flushed, every flush spray bacterium into the air. The best way to limit bacteria on your brush replace your toothbrush every 3 to 4 months and store it in a place away from the toilet and upright.
Products Recommended:
Now that you know what possible bacteria are living on these surfaces, below we will recommend products to prevent the spread!
A quality anti-bacterial hand gel, with added moisturisers that kills germs fast without the need for soap or water. Air dries quickly and is designed to leave hands cool, clean and free of germs.
An ultra-mild hand cleaner with a balanced formulation of surfactants and emollients guaranteed to leave your hands clean, fragrant, and germ-free. The hand soap is fully biodegradable and contains moisturiser to leave your hands feeling soft.
e-Surface X is an all-in-one Bio-cleaning concentrated cleaning product ideal for multi-surface. Formulated with active surfactants and natural powerful enzymes that are septic safe and non-toxic to the environment.
Designed to provide residual cleaning action even after the cleaning application has finished. The powerful enzymes eat up organic matter and stop the bacteria to grow on the surface hence killing the source of the odour itself.
With all of this in mind, how cautious of you touching any surfaces now? Maybe as you’re reading this, be more mindful of touching your face or your dirty hands touching other surfaces!
To enquire about what cleaning products can be used to prevent the spread of germs and bacteria, get in contact with our team today by calling us on 1800 177 399 or email us at sales@abcopro.com.au
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