Using School Bathrooms

Everybody knows that school bathrooms are awful places to go when it comes to encountering bacteria and viruses. There are certain precautions that can be taken in order to avoid getting sick, like washing hands, but nothing can assure that you won’t get sick from the spread of germs within a bathroom.  As much as it is maintained and cleaned throughout the year, it can still feel like you are surrounding yourself with nasty bacteria whenever you step foot into the bathroom at school. According to a study by cleanlink.com, middle stalls are the most used, which means they are the stalls full of the most germs. The first stall is most likely to be the cleanest because fewer people use it. According to livescience.com, within an hour of normal use, there are 500,000 bacterial cells per square inch on the bathroom surfaces. Many students can agree these school bathrooms are not a sanitary place to go. 

Junior, Sam Hayward, does not like the use of the air dryers. “We need paper towels instead of hand dryers,” she said. Not only does air drying hands take more time, but it is also more likely to spread germs. They are actually significantly more harmful than paper towel. A University of Leeds study found that the dryers spread 27 times the germs that paper towel would. Junior, Rachel Maude, is not fond of the smell that comes with the bathroom. “They just smell really bad,” she said. Almost everyone can agree that every bathroom in the school smells very bad. This could be prevented in a couple of ways of course. Every bathroom could be ventilated. It is easy to agree that the bathrooms within the school are muggy and gross, so some simple air flow could help reduce the smell and feeling. Odor eliminators could also be used. Air fresheners could be, but they aren’t as effective because all that does is cover up the smell until the product wears off and the smell comes back. Senior, Chloe Reno, doesn’t like the toilet seats. “We need new ones; they are all scratched up and look nasty,” she said. Although many studies confirm that toilet seats are actually one of the cleanest things in the bathroom, toilet seats in the school appear otherwise. Every bathroom in the school is maintained, but there are certain things that can be done to make the bathroom a more inviting place for students during the day.