The Places You Are Exposed to the Most Germs
By Sara Butler
There is no way you can avoid germs, they are a part of everyday life! Plus, exposure to germs helps to strengthen your immune system – no one wants to be the boy in the bubble, after all. But, knowing where you come into contact with the most germs on a daily basis can help you to be more aware of why it’s important to practice good hygiene habits, such as handwashing. Here are some of the places you are exposed to the most germs!
The Kitchen Sink
The term should really be everything and the kitchen sink because your kitchen sink is a breeding ground for bacteria. In fact, kitchen sinks often have more germs than the bathroom in a home, with more than 500,000 bacteria per square inch of your kitchen sink drain, basin and faucet (their homes of choice).
Airplane Bathrooms
Public bathrooms aren’t exactly known as bastions of germ-free existence, but airplane bathrooms have managed to separate themselves from normal bathrooms by being even dirtier. They may not look it, but not only can you find fecal matter on the faucets and door handles, the toilet lids (if there is one) aren’t usually closed causing whatever is in the toilet to be made into a spray that coats the whole room. And it’s a small room.
Wet Laundry
Even after your laundry has been washed in your washing machine, the germs present in all of your clothes still linger. Every pair of dirty underwear has about one gram of fecal matter, and that gets swirled around with all the other clothes until the germs are killed for good in the dryer. So, proceed with caution. And make sure you run bleach water through your washing machine every once in a while.
School Drinking Fountains
Kids are little Petri dishes, which should make it no surprise that school drinking fountains take the germ cake as the dirtiest public drinking fountains. Studies have found school drinking fountains to contain between 60,000 and 2.7 million bacteria per square inch of just the spigot.
Shopping Cart Handles
You know those sanitizing wipes available in most stores for shopping carts? You might want to start using them because shopping cart handles are rife with bacteria from saliva and fecal matter of literally dozens of different people.
So, do you feel like washing your hands now? Well, you should – several times a day with warm, soapy water!