Back to School Month – Live smarter not harder

In some cases, you may encounter these places numerous times a day. In others, your exposure will be more sporadic. But either way, the following locations are some of the most germ-infested in the entire United States.  Since it’s almost time for the kids to go back to school, make sure you share this information with them and warn them about the infected areas they will most likely encounter at school.  Teach them the importance of hand washing to avoid compromising their immune system. 

Healthy brains learn better!!
1. Your kitchen sink: With more dirt than a typical bathroom, and over 500,000 bacteria per square inch in the drain, your kitchen sink basin and faucet are teeming with germs.
2. Airplane bathrooms: Never mind the fecal bacteria that’s commonly found on door handles and faucets, the worst part is the tornado of germy particles that’s spewed into the air when you flush the toilet.
3. Wet laundry (even after it’s been washed): A dirty pair of underwear contains about a gram of fecal matter, and this gets spread around the entire load of laundry very quickly. It’s not until you dry the clothes that the germs are destroyed.
4. Drinking fountains: All public drinking fountains are loaded with germs, but those in schools — which contained anywhere from 62,000 to 2.7 million bacteria per square inch of the spigot — were the worst.
5. Shopping cart handles: While you’re innocently shopping for groceries, your hands are grasping a handle covered in saliva, bacteria and fecal matter from dozens of people.

7. Your handbag/school backpack: These bags are likely overrun with thousands, and even millions, of bugs like salmonella, E. coli, staph bacteria and more. Makes you think twice about putting your bag on the floor, and then plopping it down onto your kitchen counter, doesn’t it?
8. Playgrounds: Your typical children’s playground is covered in bodily fluids like blood, mucus, saliva and urine.
9. Mats and machines at health clubs/Gym Class: Yoga mat? Elliptical machine? Think bacteria factory. Such mats and cardio machines have been found to contain antibiotic-resistant staph bacteria and more.
10. Your bathtub: Bathtubs contain more than 100,000 bacteria per square inch, some of which you have just washed off your own body.
11. Your office phone: Phones get coated with germs from your mouth and hands, to the tune of over 25,000 germs per square inch.
12. Hotel-room remote control: This little remote has been used by hundreds of other people, and likely wasn’t thoroughly disinfected in between.

***Stay tuned for part II and find out the one simple way to wipe out germs and reduce your chances of becoming sickened by them!  ***