There’s a gesture we all make in bars which can be particularly dangerous according to experts. When using public toilets, the risk of contracting certain diseases can increase, especially if we are dealing with an element that can change everything. Our health can be affected by something we have all done: using public toilets that dozens, even hundreds of people use every day, depending on the time we go.
When leaving the house, we will look around, we are perhaps in a bar with 10 tables, one or two of its members will surely go to the bathroom at some point. Therefore, it will use the same element that we can use during the day or at night. Public toilets are not like those at home, they are used by a maximum of 4 people or those who live at home, for a week, several times, before being cleaned. In a public place, unless you constantly have a cleaner, it is almost impossible for it to be clean enough not to take risks when using it.
Experts issue warning
The way we are going to use this element could end up being the one that makes a significant difference. Without a doubt, we are facing a way of going to the bathroom that can even make us sick. In case we do not follow certain warnings issued by experts at all times.
During the pandemic, we have realized the importance of washing our hands and not touching certain objects. Walking down the street or leaning on a railing or traffic light can mean touching something infected by one or more people who have done the same thing.
The same thing happens in public toilets that, even if they seem clean and probably are, present us with a high risk of contracting certain diseases that we must take into account and that we may never have thought about until now. It is time to start thinking about everything that awaits us and how to face it.
A recent study showed what happens when we flush the toilet with the lid down or up. A small gesture that can change everything and that we may not do. From now on, maybe the way we use the toilet outside and even inside the house will change completely.
We all do it in bars and it’s a very dangerous move.
This The gesture we all make in bars can be particularly dangerousIf we follow some rules that we may not have taken into account until now, we will save ourselves from more than one health problem that we must first take into account.
As these experts tell us: “Using bright green lasers and camera equipment, a team of engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder conducted an experiment to reveal how tiny water droplets, invisible to the naked eye, are rapidly expelled into the air when an open public toilet is flushed. Now published in Scientific Reports, this is the first study to directly visualize the resulting aerosol column and measure the speed and spread of the particles within it. These aerosolized particles are known to carry pathogens and could pose an exposure risk to public restroom users. However, this vivid visualization of potential disease exposure also provides a methodology to help reduce it. “If it’s something you can’t see, it’s easy to pretend it doesn’t exist.” But once you watch these videos, you never think about flushing the toilet the same way again,” said John Crimaldi, the study’s lead author and a professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering. “By creating dramatic visual images of this process, our study can play an important role in public health messaging.”
Continuing with the same explanation: “Researchers have known for more than 60 years that when you flush a toilet, solids and liquids go down as intended, but tiny, invisible particles are also released into the air. Previous studies have used scientific instruments to detect the presence of these airborne particles above flushing toilets and have shown that larger particles can fall to surrounding surfaces, but until now, no one understood what these plumes looked like or how the particles got there. Understanding the trajectories and velocities of these particles (which can carry pathogens such as E. coli, C. difficile, norovirus, and adenovirus) is important for mitigating the risk of exposure through disinfection and ventilation strategies or better design of toilets and cisterns.” Although the virus that causes COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) is present in human waste, there is currently no conclusive evidence that it is effectively spread by toilet aerosols. “People knew that toilets were emitting aerosols, but they didn’t see them,” Crimaldi explained. “We showed that it is a much more energetic plume of smoke that spreads faster than even those who knew about it believed.” The study found that these airborne particles are projected rapidly, at a speed of 2 meters per second, and reach 1.5 meters above the toilet in 8 seconds. While larger droplets tend to settle on surfaces in seconds, smaller particles (aerosols smaller than 5 microns, or one millionth of a meter) can remain suspended in the air for minutes or more. Toilet users don’t just have their own waste to worry about. “Numerous other studies have shown that pathogens can persist in the cup after dozens of flushes, increasing the risk of potential exposure.”
