Bathrooms: Highways of Disease
Every building has a bathroom. Offices, schools, manufacturing facilities, restaurants. We could go on. You name it, it has a bathroom. Despite being so universal, what most people don’t realize is how dirty their bathrooms really are. Now, before someone points out, “I know the bathroom is dirty! Obviously, the toilet isn’t the cleanest thing in the office!”
Yes, the toilet is dirty, but when it comes to bathroom cleanliness, most people only think about the toilet. It turns out it isn’t the dirtiest place in the bathroom. The real culprit is the floor! Researchers swabbed bathrooms for colony-forming units (CFUs) and found that toilet seats have an average of 235,000 CFUs compared to floors which have average CFUs in the millions. The reason bathroom floors get so dirty is simple. High foot traffic, porous grout surfaces, and high moisture from sinks and toilets create the perfect breeding ground for harmful pathogens.
These factors also increase cross-contamination. Since we rarely clean the bottoms of our shoes, they act as a vector for disease. After leaving the bathroom, the bacteria clinging to the bottom of your shoe catches a free ride to wherever you’re going. That’s why it’s so necessary to have a good cleaning protocol for your bathroom, especially the floors.
Combining a sustainable floor coating with chemical-free cleaning is your best option. Traditional waxes that are used with chemical cleaners wear much quicker and make it easier for harmful biofilm to build up. Solutions like a low-maintenance floor finish combined with aqueous ozone will keep your floors and bathroom free from harmful pathogens and will reduce the spread of harmful bacteria throughout your workplace.
