It may be convenient to keep your favourite coffee mug in the office kitchen, but cleaning it there actually does more harm than good. Here’s why you should bring that mug home and give it a thorough cleaning as often as you can.
Photo by faungg’s photos.
According to Charles Gerba, Ph.D., professor of environmental microbiology at the University of Arizona, around 90% of most office mugs harbour dangerous germs, and 20% of those carry faecal bacteria. And Gerba suggests office cleaning methods are to blame. People tend to clean out coffee mugs with community sponges and scrub brushes that are laden with bacteria. So the process of cleaning them in the office kitchen or break room is actually making things worse. It doesn’t help that the coffee pot in the break room is already a germ hot spot.
If you really want to keep your favourite coffee mug from becoming a bacteria delivery service, Gerba recommends you take your mug home with you and wash it in the dishwasher as often as you can. The hot temperatures of the wash and heated dry cycle are enough to keep your mug bacteria-free. If you can’t take it home, at least wash it with hot water, soap, and dry with a paper towel daily.
http://lifehacker.com/the-most-germ-…
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Comments
6 responses to “PSA: Bring Your Office Coffee Mug Home To Clean It Regularly”
I would never user a community sponge… ehh. As I just drink black tea, I just blast the mug with boiling water. I figure this is fine as an alternative to washing.
BSA (that’s a Bonehead Service Announcement for the uninitiated…)
Cleaning the shit out of everything (shit being metaphorical) leads to more sickness:
http://www.readersdigest.ca/features/heart/clean-freak-is-our-fear-bacteria-making-us-sick/
So unless someone is taking a dump each night in you coffee mug (literally not metaphorically) then leaving it at work won’t kill you…
One works with these people, in close contact, in a fairly sealed environment. You sit at your desk as they sneeze near you, you shakes their hands, you touches pens, keyboards, doorknobs, and a million other things they also touch.
A little heard immunity gained by exposing yourself to their germs will stop you becoming very sick later. Cleanfreaks are the sick people in our society, they have no immunity in place when the nasty things arrive.
I use the community dishwasher.
But… that will kill you g-man… don’t you understand? Follow these Bonehead tips to live forever:
– Don’t leave your toothbrush in the same suburb as your toilet
– Don’t touch ANYTHING – especially toilets (and now apparently coffee mugs/cups)
– Don’t go near another living thing – they will have bacteria on them that WILL kill you
– Don’t eat – it will have bacteria on it that WILL kill you
– Don’t breathe air – it will have bacteria floating in it that WILL kill you
Feel safe now? I’m gonna write a book with these tips – will become the next best seller…
Much safer lol.