Our hands are more unhygienic than a park bench or escalator rail

The human hand harbours more harmful bacteria than public surfaces, a new study has found. Researchers found the average pair of human hands is more unhygienic than escalators and benches in busy shopping centres and parks. Yet only one in eight people always wash their hands before eating, the study shows.

Swabs taken from dirty looking surfaces in St Albans city centre and Luton Town Mall revealed a surprising lack of harmful bugs. From escalator handrails to park benches, the most bacteria ridden swabs were still hundreds of times cleaner than the average pair of hands. It means hands are far more likely to make us unwell than the apparently filthy surfaces in and around cafes and fast food restaurants we try to avoid.

Laboratory tests on 25 samples from tables, benches, escalator handrails, high chairs and children’s ride-on toys which looked stained, dirty and worn found hardly any harmful bacteria including staphylococcus, E.coli and enterobacteriaceae, which has been linked to deaths.

The reading was so low that the bacteria were either not present or were but only in tiny quantities, in most cases fewer than 10 per square cm. The overall quantity was relatively low with 33,000 the worst example, a wooden public bench.

Meanwhile, the average person carries more than 10 million bacteria on the hands alone and a University of Arizona study found a typical kitchen sponge will contain several million.

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