What Has More Germs Than a Toilet Seat? Everything

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Today, we learned that a steering wheel has more germs than a toilet seat. After years of using Purell to hand-sanitize our way to good hygiene, this was the straw that broke the camels back. Why? Because, if you've been reading newspapers lately, you'd see that everything appears to have more germs than a toilet seat.

In the spirit of cleanliness, we've compiled a mini-guide to what has more germs than a toilet seat. For our purposes, the terms "germs" and "bacteria" are used interchangeably, as they seem to be in the sources we cited. We then found a few other surprising items of what "has more germs" than another thing. Let's begin:

What Has More Germs Than a Toilet Seat:

• Steering wheels have 9 times more germs than a toilet seat.
• A computer keyboard has 5 times more germs than a toilet seat. 
• A desk has 400 times more germs than a toilet seat.
• An iPhone has 18 times more germs than a toilet seat.
• Kitchen faucets have more germs than toilet handles.
• Kitchen sponges and sinks have more germs than a toilet seat.
• Restaurant ice-cubes may have more germs than restaurant toilet water.
• Restaurant menus and high-chairs have more germs than a typical toilet seat.
• Shopping carts  have more germs than public restrooms (and escalators).

Other notables:

• Bachelor apartments have more germs than Bachelorette apartments...
• But women have more germs on their hands than men.
• Hands-free faucets have more germs than non-hand free faucets.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.