How Many Germs Are There On A Door Handle

One experiment conducted took both a stainless steel plate which is what most door handles are currently made from and a copper plate coating them both with 10 million cells each of mrsa.

How many germs are there on a door handle. 1000 words oleg doroshin. Many people worry about catching a virus from a sick coworker but. A budget grocery store cart has 8 112 bacteria colonies per square inch while a toilet handle only has 30 bacteria colonies per square inch. September 8 2014 6 36 pm cbs news.

Traditional grocery store shopping carts have 361 times more bacteria than a bathroom door knob. The survival time for bacteria is more variable. Plus there isn t a way to get around touching it either. Which would you think is safer to touch.

Similar numbers were found in another carried out by gerber. One study found more than 3 000 micro organisms per square inch on keyboards and over 1 600 bacteria per square inch on a computer mouse. On clothing or skin the survival time is roughly halved. The door handle is coated with titanium dioxide a mineral that kills bacteria and is found in paint and sunscreen.

Not surprising when you consider that the millions of skin cells you and the fam shed hourly. Here s how it works. One germy doorknob can infect half your office within hours. In lab tests their system killed about 99 8 percent of the germs that they spread onto lab dishes coated with their material.

On a hard non porous surface like a door handle most viruses are destroyed within 24 hours. Research by others has shown that door handles in public areas often host lots of bacteria and viruses notes 17 year old sum ming simon wong. Difficile has been found to survive for up to five months. You might worry less if these are your own bacteria but if you are hot desking then other people s germs could be transferring onto your hands.

There are 200 000 bacteria per square inch in your carpet which is a lot more than your toilet seat. Sum ming simon wong 17 and kin pong michael li 18 presented the design of their nifty door handle at the intel international science and engineering fair on may 12. Salmonella only lasts four hours but mrsa can last several weeks and c.