by Rebecca Walker — September 29, 2010—Research carried out in hotels, restaurants, banks, offices and airports, showed that the level of bacteria on lift buttons averaged 2,200 colony-forming units per square centimeter. This compares to on average eight colony-forming units on a public toilet seat, according to the study.
Among the common bacteria likely to be found are E-coli, Staph-aureus and MRSA.
“In a busy building, a lift button can be touched by dozens of different people who will have come into contact with all kinds of bacteria every hour,” said Dr. Nicholas Moon, director of technical and regulatory affairs at Microban Europe, which sponsored the research. Microban’s research was conducted by the University of Arizona by collecting samples from hotels, restaurants, banks, offices and airports.
“Even if the buttons are cleaned regularly, the potential for the buildup of bacteria is high. It is easy to see that in some environments, perhaps especially airports and hotels where there are thousands of people from different places regularly touching lift buttons, that they could be a major potential point for cross contamination and the spread of disease,” he said.
Microban International is a global producer of built-in antibacterial product protection, and is based in Huntersville, North Carolina. Microban also has European operations in the U.K., Germany, Italy and Spain and an Asian head office in Hong Kong.
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