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Microbiologists at Gojo Industries Inc. say that washing your hands with contaminated soap from bulk soap dispensers can leave your hands filthier than before you washed them. The bad news is that according to their research, about one in four soap dispensers in public washrooms are contaminated. Their solution: Refill soap dispensers with factory-sealed soap cartridges like the ones Gojo and other manufacturers produce.

(Gojo Industries)

AKRON, Ohio -- Here's something that might send you dashing back to the washroom: Microbiologists at GOJO Industries and other institutions have discovered that a quarter of the soap in public restrooms is so contaminated that it leaves your hands filthier than before you washed them.

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In fact, some of the soap they tested contained so much fecal matter that you're almost better off washing your hands in the toilet after you flush it, said

, professor of microbiology in the University of Arizona's Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science.

GOJO, the company that invented Purell hand sanitizer, has launched a public awareness campaign called Gojo.com/NoMoreBulkSoap to not only warn consumers about the hazards of using dirty soap, but also to convince businesses, airports, shopping centers, restaurants, and schools to quit using some soap dispensers altogether.



Scientists have known for decades that liquid soap and other consumer products can become contaminated with bacteria, but no one had specifically studied how often and to what extent that happens, said Dave Shumaker, microbiology scientist in research and development at GOJO Industries in Akron.



Gerba headed a team of researchers that tested more than 500 soap samples that GOJO collected from public restrooms in five cities: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the March 2011 "Journal of Environmental Health."

The samples were taken from refillable soap dispensers in offices, health clubs, restaurants, and retail stores, and shipped on ice via overnight mail to the University of Arizona.



Gerba said they were astounded by how concentrated the bacteria were, in populations that proved that the coliform and fecal bacteria were thriving in the soapy environment.



"It was disgusting," he said via telephone. "We didn't find any new life forms, but we found plenty of coliform bacteria. I never dreamed there could be so many bacteria in soap."



Opportunistic microbes:

Public restrooms replaced bar soaps with liquid soap after studies in the 1960s found that bar soaps were often contaminated with bacteria. Bulk soap dispensers usually have a simple hinged lid or other means of topping off the soap inside, while the dispenser itself stays mounted on the bathroom wall or beneath the sink.



Turns out that washing with dirty soap could leave your hands with "25 times more (potentially harmful) gram-negative bacteria after washing than before washing with contaminated soap," Shumaker said. "You could end up going into a public restroom and coming out dirtier than you were before."



The bacteria found in contaminated dispensers were there in concentrations of about 1,000 times what the industry recommends.

Besides being unsavory, those bacteria are opportunistic microbes that can cause eye infections, skin infections, bladder infections and urinary tract infections. They can also endanger people with compromised immune systems, or those recovering from surgery or major burns, he said.



The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has clear guidelines about liquid soap for healthcare facilities: "Do not add soap to a partially empty soap dispenser. This practice of 'topping off' dispensers can lead to bacterial contamination of soap."



Bulk soap dispensers are now rare in hospitals and nursing homes, but remain overwhelmingly common in other public restrooms.

Microbiologists at the University of Akron and GOJO Industries discovered that a quarter of the time, the liquid soap found in refillable soap dispensers like this one were heavily contaminated with fecal and coliform bacteria.

How soap gets dirty:

But how do bulk soap dispensers end up so contaminated in the first place?



Sometimes it's accidental, when airborne particles land in an open soap container.

Sometimes it's because the person refilling the dispensers just finished cleaning the toilets.

And sometimes it's vandalism, because "in schools, kids can put any number of things in those dispensers," Shumaker said.



Liquid soap is usually made from a concentrate that's diluted with tap water and poured into smaller containers used to refill the soap dispensers. Some cleaning companies may be diluting that concentrate more than recommended to save money, making them less effective against germs.

Gerba found one supplier who was reusing a 30-gallon barrel to mix the soap, and discovered "at the bottom was a half-inch of slime" that no one knew how long had been there.



Commercial soaps contain preservatives designed to inhibit the growth of harmful microbes, but scientists suspect that those preservatives break down over time. And it doesn't seem to matter whether the soap dispenser is made out of plastic or stainless steel.

One study of healthy individuals who kept developing severe skin ulcers from contaminated soap found that someone had been sticking the same dirty nozzle into each fresh gallon of soap.

Can dirty soap dispensers be washed?

GOJO also went out to an elementary school in northern Summit County to figure out if contaminated soap dispensers could be disinfected and reused. It found teachers and students there unknowingly washing their hands from 14 bulk dispensers -- all of which were contaminated to varying degrees.



For this phase, GOJO worked with Montana State University's Center for Biofilm Engineering, which specializes in studying the communities of bacteria called biofilms.

Researchers there found that even when you drain the soap out of a dispenser, disinfect it with bleach, and refill it it with fresh soap, "within two weeks, the soap inside the dispenser was just as contaminated as before the cleaning," Shumaker said.



That's because the biofilm bacteria that remains on the inside of the dispenser is very resistant to bleach, and even a tiny amount -- especially in the hard-to-reach nozzle -- was enough to recontaminate the soap. Because soap dispensers are usually bolted to the walls and can't be washed as vigorously as they are in laboratory experiments, Schumaker said it's unrealistic to expect custodial staff to disinfect them on top of their other duties.





GOJO Industries of Akron says sealed soap dispensers like this one, where the soap is sealed into a bag or cartridge at the factory and never opened in the bathroom, are safer and less prone to contamination by harmful bacteria than refillable soap dispensers.

So what's the solution?

GOJO thinks it's best to eliminate refillable soap dispensers entirely and replace them with sealed-soap dispensers that squirt soap directly on the hands. "When you're talking about a sealed system, you're just opening up the dispenser and putting a sealed cartridge in there," Shumaker said.



As reported in the May 2011 issue of the American Society of Microbiology's "Applied and Environmental Microbiology," a year after Revere Schools replaced its dispensers with GOJO-provided sealed systems, all of them were still bacteria-free.



"What a tremendous difference it's made," said Kevin Matowitz, coordinator of business services for Revere Schools in Bath Township. He said that after its experiments, GOJO gave sealed soap dispensers to the entire school district, enough for two elementary buildings, a middle school and a high school.



"We had thought that we were doing such a good job by switching to antibacterial soaps" -- until the GOJO experiments proved otherwise, he said.

Although he can't pinpoint how many students may have missed school because of soap-related illnesses in years past, "the biggest benefit is getting students to buy into the hand-washing," Matowitz said. "We're going through more product, because kids are washing their hands more."

Do sealed dispensers cost more?

But doesn't GOJO, as the soap manufacturer with the largest market share in North America, have a financial stake in getting people to switch to sealed soap dispensers?



"GOJO isn't the only manufacturer of sealed (soap) systems," said Nicole Koharik, GOJO's global sustainability marketing director. "This will help drive sales for our competitors as well, and we're fine with that. This is about motivating change."



She said GOJO is especially targeting schools, hospitals, restaurants and other food service establishments, but said the company hasn't been completely successful in getting the word out.



"The perception is that (switching to a sealed system) is more expensive, but there's actually a cost-savings in terms of reduced illness and absenteeism," caused by dirty soap, Shumaker said. "You can recycle that bag or cartridge and put in a new bag that was sealed at the factory" and is never opened in the washroom. He said companies that service washrooms might even save time by not having to top off sealed dispensers.

Shumaker said he doesn't know what GOJO's findings mean for refillable soap dispensers in the home, but that it might be a topic for future research.

Gerba, of the University of Arizona, said he found the soap experiments so disturbing that he now carries hand sanitizer around with him all the time. "I've become rather paranoid about it," he said.



For more information about GOJO's campaign to replace bulk soap dispensers, log on to Gojo.com/NoMoreBulkSoap



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