A study discovered that hand dryers in public bathrooms blew bacteria onto people’s hands.
According to their findings, the plates had 18-60 colonies of bacteria on average. Plates that were simply left in the public restrooms and not placed under the hand driers had fewer than one colony on average.
The dryer nozzles also contained “minimal bacterial levels,” according to the authors’ findings.
“These results indicate that many kinds of bacteria, including potential pathogens and spores, can be deposited on hands exposed to bathroom hand dryers, and that spores could be dispersed throughout buildings and deposited on hands by hand dryers,” the authors stated.
They also said they were uncertain as to what “organisms” were “dispersed by hand dryers” or if “hand dryers provide a reservoir of bacteria or simply blow large amounts of bacterially contaminated air, and whether bacterial spores are deposited on surfaces by hand dryers.”
Some hand dryers didn’t have high-efficiency particulate air, or HEPA, filters. These filters were common in Dyson dryer models.
But researchers said that they found the HEPA filters didn’t eliminate the bacteria completely, although they did help to decrease it.
Meanwhile, the authors noted that hand dryers are “responsible for spreading pathogenic bacteria, including bacterial spores” throughout entire buildings, not just in bathrooms.
Are Paper Towers Better?
Peter Setlow, an author of the study, told Newsweek that “bacteria in bathrooms will come from feces, which can be aerosolized a bit when toilets, especially lidless toilets, are flushed.”Setlow said that the hand dryers suck up bathroom air and spew it back on to one’s hands.
“Perhaps the filters weren’t working properly, or the large air column below the hand dryers was sucking in bacteria from unfiltered air adjacent to the forced air column,” Setlow added.
Ice Machines?
A BBC Watchdog report found that ice served by some fast food chains was contaminated with fecal bacteria.
More than half of the samples from the major chains—including Burger King, KFC, and McDonald’s—were contaminated with the bacteria, according to the BBC documentary. The investigation was made after it had been revealed that ice from coffee chains like Starbucks also contained fecal bacteria.
Out of 10 samples that were obtained from each of the three chains, seven were found to be contaminated from KFC, six were contaminated from Burger King, and three from McDonald’s, the Watchdog report stated. Five of the seven tested at KFC were noted as “severe” in the report.
“And then you also have to look at hygiene failure with potentially the machines themselves: are they being kept clean?”
KFC has since said it completely shut down the ice machines that were named in the report.
