Not a day goes by without people reading in newspapers about risks to our health and safety, as this article from freesheet Metro explains:
Dirty ATMs as risky as public loos. (NOTE: The web article is slightly different from the print one.)
Withdrawing cash from an ATM is the same as spending a penny when it comes to exposure to nasty bugs, experts have revealed.
Tapping in your Pin puts you in touch with the same amounts- and kinds- of bacteria as using a public toilet, experts have found.
Swabs taken from both sites contained pseudomonads and bacillus bacteria types, both of which are behind common afflictions such as diarrhoea.
Microbiologist Dr Richard Hastings admitted the findings were unexpected. “We were surprised by our results because the ATM machines were shown to be heavily contaminated,” he added.
The swabbing swoop followed a survey for company BioCote which revealed the top ten dirtiest places in the eyes of the public.
Top ten dirtiest places, according to the survey, are:
- Public toilets
- Communal/public telephones
- Bus stops
- Tube/metro stations
- Seats on a bus
- Seats on a tube/train
- Cash machines
- Train stations
- Seats on a train
- Chip and Pin pads
The findings put chip and Pin pads at a lowly tenth, far behind public toilets. More than 42 per cent thought cash machines dirty. A quarter of them admitted trying not to use them to avoid touching the buttons.
And ten per cent admitted wiping down public telephones after use.