A new study suggests the dirtiest places in an airport are the self check-in kiosks, which we almost all use these days.
In fact they are 200 times more germ-ridden than your toilet seat at home. Insurance website, InsuranceQuotes.com, conducted 18 tests across six surfaces at three major US airports, swabbing each surface several times and then averaging the amount of colony-forming units (CFU) - viable bacteria and fungal cells-per square inch.
According to their findings, the average self check-in screen at airports contained 253,857 CFU (to compare, an average of 172 CFU are found on household toilet seats). And that's just the average number found across the screens tested - one one kiosk recorded over one million CFU per square inch!
In second and third place - with 21,630 CFU per square inch and 19,181 CFU per square inch respectively - are gate bench armrests and water fountain buttons.
Those levels are comparable to the amount of bacteria found in the average kitchen sink, which studies have shown is one of the dirtiest spots in the home.
