Don't panic, but there's probably poop on your work coffee mug.

Maybe I should give you some more information before you lose it completely and leave a freaked-out-employee-shaped hole in your office wall.

Yes, it's convenient to leave your special 'best mum ever' mug in the communal kitchen at work, but you might want to take it home of an evening to give it a good ol' scrub-a-dub-dub. Why? Well I'll tell you why: 20% of work mugs carry fecal matter aka poop germs.

According to Charles Gerba, Ph.D., professor of environmental microbiology at the University of Arizona, around 90% of most office mugs harbour dangerous germs, and 20% of those carry fecal bacteria. And it's all down to the cleaning methods used in offices, according to Charles.

People tend to clean out coffee mugs with community sponges and scrubbing brushes that are laden with bacteria. So the process of cleaning them in the office kitchen or break room is actually making things worse.

Perhaps you'd be better off getting a coffee from that nice place down the road. There's no poop on their paper cups. Probably…

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Anna Lewis News Editor Anna Lewis is the News Editor at Delish UK, which means she’s always either writing about food, cooking food or eating food.

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