How to keep your desk from becoming a bacteria breeding ground – without going over the top



You swear by the office bathroom drill: wash hands, dry hands, use paper towel to open door, manoeuvre elbow and leg to move door, and return – hands untouched by germ threats – to your desktop. Where, on average, about 135,231 germs per square centimetre await you – or 400 times more than the toilet seat you were so worried about. Our workspace disinfecting tips will get you started, with less effort than it takes you to exit the bathroom.


Know thy enemy
Germs thrive on human touch, so anything that gets regular contact – telephone, mouse, keyboard – is loaded with the critters. “You’re touching about 30 objects per minute in your workspace,” says germ guru Dr Charles Gerba, a microbiologist from the University of Arizona, US, who conducted a study of germs in the workplace.


Play defence
Don’t just wash your hands in that bathroom ritual; scrub ’em, says Dr Jack Brown, author of Don’t Touch That Doorknob! How Germs Can Zap You and How You Can Zap Back ($26.99, Grand Central Publishing). “The scrubbing motion dislodges the organisms from the surface,” he says, adding that a thorough wash should take about 45 seconds.


Wipe them away
Once a week, wipe your space with disinfectant – preferably the natural kind, like white vinegar, tea tree oil or baking soda mixed with water. Many experts believe that chemical disinfectants can do more harm than the germs will. “Hardcore cleaning products are irritating to skin, eyes and the respiratory tract,” says WH health expert Dr Ginni Mansberg. “Wheezing is often triggered by exposure to disinfectants, especially if you’re in a closed room or they haven’t been diluted properly.” Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US, found that white vinegar and baking soda kill 90 per cent of bacteria (compared with chemical disinfectants, which slaughter 99.9 per cent or more).


Use alcohol
If it’s sneezy season and you’re desk-confined, disinfect your hands before touching anything that goes to your mouth, like lip balm or food, with a sanitiser that contains alcohol, such as Purell Antibacterial Hand Sanitiser with aloe vera. “Alcohol is a drying agent,” Dr Brown says. “It tends to pull water away from the organisms, and that harms them.”


Avoid the crowd
Shared spaces like the office kitchen are germ magnets. “About 20 per cent of office cups contain coliform bacteria, which is related to faecal [poo] contamination,” Dr Gerba warns. Keep your own mug and wash it regularly with detergent. And when possible, pass on control of the PowerPoint remote in the conference room – the gadgets registered some of the highest bacteria levels in Dr Gerba’s study.


Don’t freak out
Contact with germs isn’t all bad and can in fact help your health. Research has been conducted into the connection between exposure to unhygienic environments and immune system strength. A team at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine in Switzerland studied more than 800 children aged six to 13. They found that growing up on a farm and being exposed to dirt, and animal dandruff and bacteria may protect the health of children, and that kids who lived in the dirtiest environments were less likely to suffer from asthma and hayfever, because the exposure helps strengthen their immune systems. The expert advice: “Don’t get crazy about having antibacterial wipes around all the time,” says Dr Sandeep Kapur, a pediatric allergist from Canada. “Realise that some exposure to germs in life is not bad, it’s actually good.”