Tag Archives: Paper Towel

42: Tea towels a source of bacteria in kitchen

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I was never a paper towel kinda guy.

I have about 30 tea towels, including one with images of all of Sorenne’s prep (kindergarten) pals and teachers.

They are my go-to sweat rags, hand wipes and kitchen cleaner-uppers.

As advised by The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, never leave home without a towel.

About five go into the laundry every day.

According to a study published by the University of Mauritius, and presented recently at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, your kitchen towels may be the leading culprit of pathogen advancement.

“Our study demonstrates that the family composition and hygienic practices in the kitchen affected the microbial load of kitchen towels,” said Dr. Biranjia-Hurdoyal. “We also found that diet, type of use and moist kitchen towels could be very important in promoting the growth of potential pathogens responsible for food poisoning,” she said.

Researchers collected a total of 100 kitchen towels after one month of use. Using standard biochemical tests, they concluded that 49% of the kitchen towels collected in the study had bacterial growth. The bacterial growth increased in number with family size—whether by extended family, or the presence of children.

Experts discourage using kitchen towels for multiple purposes (wiping utensils, drying hands, holding hot utensils, wiping/cleaning surfaces) because they had a higher bacterial count than single-use towels. They also warn against using humid towels because they too showed higher bacterial count than dry ones. Pathogens on kitchen towels would indicate that they could bear some responsibility for cross-contamination in the kitchen and, ultimately, food poisoning. Households with children, older adults or others with immunosuppression should be especially vigilant about hygiene in the kitchen.

But, like other studies of sponges and things, the researchers don’t account for the level of cleaning in a particular household. Five a day, into the laundry.

And rather than blame consumers, have a look at bacterial loads on chef aprons.

New research or PR: Why paper towels are the most hygienic way to dry your hands?

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I have no problem with who funds research, as long as there is full disclosure and the methodology is available for critique in a peer-reviewed journal. That would be the public part.

handwash_south_park(2)The Daily Mail in the UK thinks readers are too dumb to ask for references, and begins with, “Paper towels are the most hygienic way to dry hands after going to the loo, a study has found.”

It took The Mirror to note that the University of Westminster’s snappily-titled study ‘Comparison of different hand-drying methods: the potential for airborne microbe dispersal and contamination‘ was published in the March 2015 edition of The Journal of Hospital Infection.

The research was commissioned by paper towel manufacturers and claims that single-use towels are the most hygienic way to dry off.

It probably is.

The research also claims that bathroom air dryers may be blasting bacteria directly into the faces of children.

However, a major hand dryer manufacturer has disputed the claims, calling the research “flawed”.

The university’s study was undertaken by leading microbiologist Keith Redway of the University’s Department of Biomedical Sciences and looked at the potential for microbial contamination from hand drying and the potential risks for the spread of microbes in the air, particularly if hands are not washed properly.

jon.stewart.handwashing.2002The peer-reviewed research – which was commissioned by the European Tissue Symposium (ETS) – used four different hand drying methods and three different test models to compare differences between the drying methods and their capacity to spread microbes from the hands of users potentially to other people in public washrooms.

Paper towels, a textile roller towel, a warm air dryer and a jet air dryer were compared using three different test models: acid indicator using lemon juice, yeast, and bacterial transmission from hands when washed without soap.

The University of Westminster scientists found that the jet air dryer spread liquid from users’ hands further and over a greater distance – up to 1.5 m – than the other drying methods.

They also recorded the greatest spread of microbes into the air at both near and far distances for each of the tested models.

Levels recorded at close distance for a jet air dryer revealed an average of 59.5 colonies of yeast compared with an average of just 2.2 colonies for paper towels.

At a distance of 0.2 m the jet air dryer recorded 67 colonies of yeast compared with only 6.5 for paper towels. At a distance of 1.5 m the jet air dryer recorded 11.5 colonies of yeast compared to zero for paper towels.

The research also looked at the body height at which microbes were spread by air dryers.

It found the greatest dispersal was at 0.6 – 0.9 m from the floor, the face height of small children who might be standing near the dryer when a parent is drying his or her hands.

Leading researcher Keith Redway said: “These findings clearly indicate that single-use towels spread the fewest microbes of all hand-drying methods.

“Cross contamination in public washrooms is a legitimate public health concern. The extent to which jet air dryers disperse microbes into the washroom environment is likely to have implications for policy guidance to facilities managers operating in a wide range of environments from sports venues and airports through to schools and hospitals.”

But Dyson, a major hand dryer manufacturer, strongly disputes the study’s findings.

A spokesperson said: “The paper towel industry has consistently failed to invent new technology or respond to environmental concerns.

“Paper towels are costly to buy and replace, and are rarely recycled, meaning they are sent to landfill or incinerated. To argue their case, the paper towel industry is continuing to commission research with flawed methodology.

“A study conducted by Campden BRI’s (an independent membership-based organisation carrying out research and development for the food and drinks industry worldwide) hygiene specialists found that there are no practical differences between any of the hand drying techniques investigated (paper towels, conventional air dryers and the Dyson Airblade) with regard to microbial aerosol generation.

“The very low numbers of airborne microbes resulting from use of each of the hand dryers would make an insignificant contribution to the overall background microbial loading of the air.”

handwash_infosht-2-7-08 copy

What’s the best way to dry your hands? Paper towel

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Almost seven years ago, I got hired by Kansas State University after publicly declaring their all-in-one handwashing system sorta sucked.

handwashing unitThe prez agreed, and I wrote a summary document of available research

Probably should have turned that into a paper and published it (although we have published other handwashing things).

No worries, Dr Cunrui Huang of the Queensland University of Technology has done it for me, concluding it is more hygienic to dry your hands with a paper towel than an electric dryer.

Paper towels are more efficient because they work more quickly than hot air and physically remove germs from the hand, an Australian researcher found.

The transfer of germs is more likely from wet hands than dry hands.

“A hand dryer takes 30 seconds longer to achieve about the same dryness as a towel. This is important because most people spend less than 20 seconds drying their hands,” Dr Huang said.

“It is likely that paper towels also work better because they physically remove bacteria from the hands, whereas hot air dryers and jet air dryers cannot.”
Dr Huang reviewed 12 studies that evaluated the drying efficiency and removal of bacteria when using paper towels, cloth towels, hot air dryers and new jet air systems.

“What I found was that from a hygiene viewpoint, paper towels are superior,” he says.

Keith Redway, senior academic in Microbiology and Molecular Biology at Westminster University has shown that disposable paper towels remove 58 per cent of bugs and cotton roller-towels 45 per cent.

“The message has to be to wash and then dry your hands thoroughly, using handwashing.munich.may.12paper towels, not the hot-air dryers,” explained Redway.

Unfortunately, paper towels are rare in Queensland and Australian bathrooms, and in many other places. There are lots of handwashing preachers, but what about providing the proper tools for handwashing, like paper towels?

And yes, I still take pictures in bathrooms.

Unhealthy sport: Nebraska college football player destroys paper towel dispenser after loss

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 I’m a big fan of paper towels in any sort of public bathroom. The friction of wiping hands thoroughly with paper towel has been shown to remove a couple of log worth of bacteria.

And I can understand that Nebraska college football players may be disappointed after abandoning the Big 12 for the seductive lure of the Big 10, only to get thrashed by new conference rivals, Wisconsin, 48-17.

But don’t take it out on the paper towel dispenser.

USA Today reports defensive tackle Chase Rome was given a $326 ticket for damaging a paper towel dispenser at a Madison airport while waiting to fly back to Lincoln, Nebraska.

Rome, who was credited with two tackles in the game, allegedly ripped the dispenser off the wall.

"The paper towel dispenser was totaled," Dane County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Elise Schaffer told madison.com.

You can hold my koala but not wash your hands

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Sunday in Brisbane (that’s in Australia) was a perfect chance to discover the local wildlife: kangaroos and koalas at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Emma and Sorenne were overly excited by the opportunity. When it was their turn to get their photo taken with the koala, however, I noticed the sign on the hand sanitizer station saying, “Out of Order. Sorry for any inconvenience.” As we exited the area into the food court, Emma grabbed some sanitizing wipes that were available (but unmarked and almost not noticeable) on a table and cleaned up Sorenne’s hands the best she could.

After our afternoon “tea” (that’s Australian for “snack”), we headed into the Kangaroo Rescue area. For $2 I bought a rather large bag of kangaroo feed, and we proceeded to shove our hands into the faces of every kangaroo who passed by. Emma was brave and lay down on the ground to pose with one of the big boys. For me the highlight was either seeing a pregnant mommy ‘roo whose joey was wiggling about in her pouch or watching Sorenne’s face light up when the baby kangaroos ate from her hands (right exactly as shown).

Upon exiting the area (which was filled with scrub turkeys, ducks, wombats, emus and feces in addition to the kangaroos), there was a handwashing station with ample running cold water and soap but no paper towel to dry hands. The park prides itself on reusing water, and there was clear signage indicating that all water in use was recycled except for handwashing, food preparation, and drinking water. I didn’t feel confident that they were able to separate distribution so well after realizing that handwashing wasn’t possible in the koala cuddling zone.

Handwashing really isn’t simple, especially when the proper tools are not available.
 

You can hold my koala but not wash your hands

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Sunday in Brisbane (that’s in Australia) was a perfect chance to discover the local wildlife: kangaroos and koalas at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Emma and Sorenne were overly excited by the opportunity. When it was their turn to get their photo taken with the koala, however, I noticed the sign on the hand sanitizer station saying, “Out of Order. Sorry for any inconvenience.” As we exited the area into the food court, Emma grabbed some sanitizing wipes that were available (but unmarked and almost not noticeable) on a table and cleaned up Sorenne’s hands the best she could.

After our afternoon “tea” (that’s Australian for “snack”), we headed into the Kangaroo Rescue area. For $2 I bought a rather large bag of kangaroo feed, and we proceeded to shove our hands into the faces of every kangaroo who passed by. Emma was brave and lay down on the ground to pose with one of the big boys. For me the highlight was either seeing a pregnant mommy ‘roo whose joey was wiggling about in her pouch or watching Sorenne’s face light up when the baby kangaroos ate from her hands (right exactly as shown).

Upon exiting the area (which was filled with scrub turkeys, ducks, wombats, emus and feces in addition to the kangaroos), there was a handwashing station with ample running cold water and soap but no paper towel to dry hands. The park prides itself on reusing water, and there was clear signage indicating that all water in use was recycled except for handwashing, food preparation, and drinking water. I didn’t feel confident that they were able to separate distribution so well after realizing that handwashing wasn’t possible in the koala cuddling zone.

Handwashing really isn’t simple, especially when the proper tools are not available.
 

Sanitizers suck for petting zoos, hospitals?

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What’s better, washing with soap and water and drying with paper towel, or using a sanitizer?

About 10 years ago the consensus was leaning toward sanitizers because of convenience and mobility. But new studies questioning the effectiveness of various sanitizers means handwashing has become fashionable yet again.

Are sanitizers better than nothing? Probably, in places like hospitals, but not so much on farms where organic matter – dirt and poop – rapidly reduce the effectiveness of sanitizers.

In the wake of an outbreak of cryptosporidium linked to a live lambing event in Wales that has sickened at least 13, the U.K. Health Protection Agency (HPA) has warned anyone who is visiting an open farm over the Easter weekend not to rely on sanitizing hand gels or wipes to protect themselves or their children against germs that may be present in animal dirt around the farm.

Although the risk of becoming unwell is very low in light of the millions of farm visits every year there are, on average, around three outbreaks of gastrointestinal disease which are linked to visits to petting farms. The route of infection in these outbreaks is generally through contact with germs from animal droppings. These germs can be ingested when people, especially children, put their fingers in their mouths.

To reduce the risk of illness, both adults and children should thoroughly wash their hands using soap and water after they have handled animals or touched surfaces at the farm and always before eating or drinking. Hand gels can’t remove contamination in the manner that soap and water can.

Research published by the HPA of a review of 55 outbreaks of intestinal disease linked to petting farms between 1992 and 2009 showed that one of the risk factors associated with illness was the reliance on hand gels instead of handwashing. Over the 17 year period of the study, 1,328 people were reported to have fallen ill following a farm visit, of whom 113 were hospitalised. Illness ranged from mild through to severe diarrhoea and occasionally more serious conditions.

Over half of the 55 outbreaks in the study, 30 (55 per cent) were caused by E. coli O157 (VTEC O157) and a further 23 (42 per cent) were caused by cryptosporidium. The remaining two (three per cent) outbreaks were caused by a type of salmonella.
Other risk factors noted in the research are which have been linked to outbreaks include bottle feeding lambs and thumb sucking by children. The full research paper can be found in Emerging Infectious Diseases 2010 Gormley et al. ‘Transmission of Cryptosporidium spp. at petting farms, England and Wales’ http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/

Hand gels have their use in areas which are generally clean, for example offices or hospitals, but are not effective in killing bugs such as E. coli or cryptosporidium which can be found in animal droppings and on contaminated surfaces around farms.

Except there may be some BS in the cleanest offices.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported yesterday that some hand sanitizers and antiseptic products come with claims that they can prevent MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) infections.

Don’t believe them. These statements are unproven, says FDA.

“Staphylococcus aureus itself is a very aggressive organism,” says Edward Cox, M.D., M.P.H., director of FDA’s Office of Antimicrobial Products. “It’s often associated with patients in hospitals who have weakened immune systems, but the bacterium can also cause significant skin infections and abscesses in a normal, healthy person. And it can get into the bloodstream and, less frequently, may involve the heart valve, which is very difficult to treat.”

But this antibiotic-resistant strain is even more difficult to treat. “With MRSA, a number of the antibiotic drugs we typically used often don’t work, so we lose treatment options we used to rely upon,” says Cox.

FDA is cracking down on companies that break federal law by promoting their products as preventing MRSA infections and other diseases without agency review and approval.

“Consumers are being misled if they think these products you can buy in a drug store or from other places will protect them from a potentially deadly infection,” says Deborah Autor, compliance director at FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

FDA wants consumers to watch out for unproven product claims, too—whether they buy a product from a retail store or through the Internet.

Examples of unproven claims found on product labels are
* kills over 99.9% of MRSA
* helps prevent skin infections caused by MRSA and other germs
* is effective against a broad spectrum of pathogens, including MRSA

One company claims that its hand sanitizing lotion prevents infection from the bacterium E. coli and the H1N1 flu virus. And another firm claims its “patented formulation of essential plant oils” kills the bacterium Salmonella. These claims are also unproven and, therefore, illegal.

“FDA has not approved any products claiming to prevent infection from MRSA, E. coli, Salmonella, or H1N1 flu, which a consumer can just walk into a store and buy” says Autor. “These products give consumers a false sense of protection.”

Handwashing studies offer conflicting results

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I’m confused with these conflicting handwashing studies.

And, as Les Nessman of WKRP in Cinncinatti said, when I get confused, I watch television. It somehow makes things simple. Television is never confusing.

This morning it was alcohol-based sanitizers didn’t do much to limit the spread of the H1N1 virus, but worked well against cold viruses (the sanitizers also sorta suck against norovirus).

Later today, it was the results of another of those creepy make-grad-students-hang –out-in-public-bathrooms studies, to see if people actually wash their hands, which found that 85 per cent of adults washed their hands in public restrooms, the highest number since the studies began in 1996.

But it’s a far cry from the 96% of adults who say they always wash their hands in public restrooms, based on a separate telephone survey conducted at the same time.

Men do a lot worse than women overall — just 77% scrubbed up, compared with 93% of women.

The study was sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology and the American Cleaning Institute (formerly the Soap and Detergent Association). It involved discreetly observing 6,028 adults in public restrooms in August to see whether they washed their hands.

Great. More people are attempting to wash their hands. But are they doing it correctly? Does any attempt count, or only if handwashing is done according to government prescriptions. What is the best way to wash hands? Can’t people with PhDs agree?

No.

A study by researchers at the University of Bradford and published in the current Journal of Applied Microbiology evaluated three kinds of hand drying and their effect on transfer of bacteria from the hands to other surfaces: paper towels, traditional hand dryers, which rely on evaporation, and a new model of hand dryer, which rapidly strips water off the hands using high velocity air jets.??

In this study the researchers quantified the effects of hand drying by measuring the number of bacteria on different parts of the hands before and after different drying methods. Volunteers were asked to wash their hands and place them onto contact plates that were then incubated to measure bacterial growth. The volunteers were then asked to dry their hands using either hand towels or one of three hand dryers, with or without rubbing their hands together, and levels of bacteria were re-measured.

The researchers found the most effective way of keeping bacterial counts low, when drying hands, was using paper towels. Amongst the electric dryers, the model that rapidly stripped the moisture off the hands was best for reducing transfer of bacteria to other surfaces.

Yet tomorrow’s N.Y. Times reports it’s a draw, and that “the best available evidence suggests that as far as germs go, the method of drying is less important than the amount of time invested: the longer the better.”

So my pants would be fine as long as I used them enough.

Dr. O. Peter Snyder at the St. Paul-based Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management summarized key aspects of handwashing and drying in a paper available at, http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Safehands.html. Snyder says that after hands are washed and rinsed, they must be thoroughly dried.

Blow dryers should not be used because they accumulate microorganisms from toilet aerosols, and can cause contamination of hands as they are dried by the drier (Knights, et al., 1993; Redway,et al., 1994).

Snyder notes that it is also apparent that many individuals do not dry their hands thoroughly when using a blow drier; hence, moisture, which is conducive to microbial growth, remains on hands, or people dry their hands on their clothing.

Proper handwashing requires access to the proper tools – and that means vigorously running water, soap and paper towel.

We’ve reviewed the literature on handwashing and how best to motivate people to wash hands, and conclude in a paper to be published shortly that,

“Although the role of hand hygiene in preventing infectious disease is well recognized, studies repeatedly show that compliance remains low. … Education and training have been cited often as essential to developing and maintaining hand hygiene compliance but, with few exceptions, this approach has not produced sustained improvement. … Hand hygiene was enhanced by provoking emotive sensations of discomfort, unpleasantness and disgust. Evidence suggests handwashing is a ritualized behavior mainly carried out as self-protection from infection and that patterns of handwashing behavior are likely established in childhood. Therefore, interventions that focus on culture, perception and behavior change may prove to be the most successful. How that success is measured must be carefully considered, as there is no standardized method for measuring hand hygiene compliance and current techniques have significant limitations.”
 

Dry hands or spread bacteria; paper towel better than blowers

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Another meaningless survey relying on self-reporting has found 50 per cent of 1,053 U.S. respondents said they "wash their hands more thoroughly or longer or more frequently" in public restrooms as a result of the H1N1 virus – that’s up from 45 percent in 2009 when the same question was asked.

But even if people think they are vigilant about washing their hands – observational studies say they aren’t – are people washing and drying hands in a way to lower bacterial loads? Not drying hands thoroughly after washing them could increase the spread of bacteria, and rubbing hands whilst using a conventional electric hand dryer could be a contributing factor. Frequently people give up drying their hands and wipe them on their clothes instead.

That’s what I observed anecdotally when I first visited Kansas State University in 2005 and saw these groovy all-in-one hand units that are terrible for hand sanitation; paper towels were subsequently installed so people could at least dry their hands properly.

A study by researchers at the University of Bradford and published in the current Journal of Applied Microbiology evaluated three kinds of hand drying and their effect on transfer of bacteria from the hands to other surfaces: paper towels, traditional hand dryers, which rely on evaporation, and a new model of hand dryer, which rapidly strips water off the hands using high velocity air jets.??

In this study the researchers quantified the effects of hand drying by measuring the number of bacteria on different parts of the hands before and after different drying methods. Volunteers were asked to wash their hands and place them onto contact plates that were then incubated to measure bacterial growth. The volunteers were then asked to dry their hands using either hand towels or one of three hand dryers, with or without rubbing their hands together, and levels of bacteria were re-measured.

??Dr Snelling and her team found that rubbing the hands together whilst using traditional hand dryers could counteract the reduction in bacterial numbers following handwashing. Furthermore, they found that the relative reduction in the number of bacteria was the same, regardless of the hand dryer used, when hands were kept still. When hands are rubbed together during drying, bacteria that live within the skin can be brought to the surface and transferred to other surfaces, along with surface bacteria that were not removed by handwashing.

The researchers found the most effective way of keeping bacterial counts low, when drying hands, was using paper towels. Amongst the electric dryers, the model that rapidly stripped the moisture off the hands was best for reducing transfer of bacteria to other surfaces.