How to Wash Hands After Using Public Bathrooms

Do you catch a lot of colds and pick up strange viruses? Do you travel a lot? Here are a few tips to reduce bacteria when using public bathroom facilities.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Soap
• Water
• Paper Towels
• One Minute (60 seconds)

1. After flushing the toilet or urinal, walk over to the sink and towel area.
2. If hand paper towels are extracted by pushing a lever, push the lever down until four to five inches of paper towel has been ejected.
3. Turn on the water, wet your hands, and use the soap provided. Wash your hands about 60 seconds.
4. If the paper towel dispenser is motion activated, then wave your hand to have the paper ejected.
5. Take the paper towel ejected and use it to turn off the faucet. Then, use the same towel to eject more paper towels.
6. Dry your hands. Save the paper towel to open the door if the bathroom has exit doors.
7. Toss the paper towel in the nearest trash can (as you exit the door if one is nearby).

Tips & Warnings

• Remember that you may wash your hands, but others do not.
• Children need to observe adults washing their hands to make it a habit.
• When people (who do not wash their hands) exit the bathroom, they have put all their germs on the handles on the doors.
• Although there are germs everywhere, there is more of a concentration of germs in public bathrooms.
• Allowing the body to fight off germs allows the body to develop a stronger resistance. However, it is never a good time to inundate the body with too many germs.
• Day cares, restaurants, and many businesses require employees (and children in the day cares) to wash their hands. It is recognized that hand washing is one of the primary defenses against fighting off germs.
• The above tips are good at large parties as well.
• Do not become phobic over germs. Although they are there, hand washing and avoiding contaminated areas are sufficient to reduce bacteria to safer levels.
• People do all kinds of things in the bathroom (point, spray, dunk, wipe, and change used menstrual products). When they do not wash their hands, they spread the germs from their bodies to others.
• Report employees who do not wash their hands prior to returning to work. It may be your table waited on by the employee.