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Do you close the toilet lid before you flush? If your answer is “no”, the following lines may convince you!
The toilet bowl is full of bacteria. Everyone knows that! But very few people close the toilet lid before flushing. And that’s a big mistake! In 1975 Dr. Charles Gerba conducted a study that showed small droplets of water sprayed from the bowl contain bacteria such as E. coli.
After flushing they can travel up to 4.5 meters and remain in the air for six hours.
If you were to zoom in on the toilet bowl and slow the footage, you would see how thousands of tiny water droplets rise up during a flush. It can somewhat resemble a fountain-like fireworks display.
Why not do it?
These water droplets are full of bacteria, such as E. coli. This means you can catch many illnesses because of an unclosed toilet lid. If your toilet is located in the bathroom, it means that toilet water can end up on mirrors, cabinets, toothbrushes, makeup and other items.
A 2012 study shows that if you don’t close the toilet lid, there are 12x more diarrhea-causing bacteria in the air than when you close it.
You can then suffer from diseases such as Norovirus, SARS and pandemic flu because of them.
