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Are objects such as towels, bank notes, carpet, shopping trolleys and light switches listed in blogs such as these and these really dirtier than an average toilet seat since Dr Chuck Gerba, professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona has said that every toilet seat, on average, has 50 bacteria?

"It's one of the cleanest things you'll run across in terms of micro-organisms," he said. "It's our gold standard - there are not many things cleaner than a toilet seat when it comes to germs."

pericles316
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  • [This article](http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/home/the-shocking-bacteria-count-of-daily-items/story-fneuz5ql-1226606341167) actually lists some number from the Gerba research. No reference (link) though. –  Oct 23 '15 at 13:57
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    Suggested reading for anyone who has more time to dive into this: http://www.nsf.org/newsroom_pdf/journal_of_envir_health_sept_2012_microbial_hotspots.pdf and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3661444/ (and references from there on) –  Oct 23 '15 at 14:15
  • @JanDoggen-The NSF study does not contain any information regarding towels, bank notes, and light switches. It concentrates on kitchen surfaces, bathroom surfaces, pet items and personal objects. The Robert Dunn et.al. study has references to carpet which is a good find!. – pericles316 Oct 23 '15 at 16:00
  • Hospital reusable towels has been researched here by Gerba-http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21499954 and light switches in hospital settings are researched here-http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18069083 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18171180. MRSA is known to be present in bank notes except for Croatian Kuna through this study-http://www.aricjournal.com/content/pdf/2047-2994-2-22.pdf and also some currency is known to have traces of cocaine-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency. – pericles316 Oct 23 '15 at 16:13
  • Shopping cart study by Gerba is present here-http://www.foodprotection.org/files/food-protection-trends/Dec-12-Maxwell.pdf and shopping cart handles study present here-https://www.uop.edu.jo/download/research/members/74_1762_A._A.pdf – pericles316 Oct 23 '15 at 16:17
  • This has also been investigated by the MythBusters. – Andrew Grimm Jan 31 '16 at 07:14
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    My toilet seat is actually pretty clean. It would not take a lot of dirt for something to be more dirty than it. – Neil Meyer Jan 31 '16 at 15:19

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