You are here: silicon.com > Hardware > Desktops

Desktops

Is dirty hardware making you sick?

Just where did those crumbs go?...

Tags: telephone, hardware, cleaning

By Natasha Lomas

Published: 29 November 2007 15:38 GMT

Take a look at your keyboard. Is last week's lunch still decorating the space bar? What about your phone? Does the earpiece look as greasy as a spoon in a truckers' café?

Office equipment harbours millions of germs - with telephones, keyboards and mice particularly fertile breeding grounds for nasties, claims IT equipment cleaning company PROtech IT Hygiene.

The average office desk is capable of supporting some 10 million microbes, said the cleaning company, and there are nearly 21,000 microbes per square inch in the average office.

Unsurprisingly, the filthiest equipment is the hardware that gets handled most. Telephones are the worst offenders, holding up to 25,127 microbes per square inch, while computer keyboards, which are well placed to catch morsels of lunch, sneezes and dead skin and hair, can be germ-ridden to the tune of 3,295 microbes per square inch and mice can harbour up to 1,676.

Enough dead skin falls off a human in a day to fill a teacup, according to the company, which said some cold and flu viruses can survive on surfaces for up to 72 hours.

Unclean office equipment can not only increase absenteeism among staff by exposing them to germs that cause colds and flu but may also cause the hardware itself to malfunction, the company warned.

While disinfecting equipment might be simple, getting staff to clean themselves is probably much harder: 31 per cent of men and 17 per cent of women admit they do not wash their hands after going to the toilet.

  1. Zones
  2. Management
  3. Networks
  4. Software
  5. IT Services
  6. Hardware
  1. Verticals
  2. Public Sector
  3. Financial Services
  4. Retail & Leisure

Seb Janacek Minority Report: Mac Mini - a real nowhere machine What could it have become with a little more love and attention?

Bethan Jones Can I use a netbook as my everyday work machine? Part II silicon.com sub editor reveals whether her netbook delivered


  • Jobs
Territory Manager - Cleaning Products - OTE 40K

Territory Manager - Nottingham - OTE 40K The Role: Territory Manager required for market leading cleaning product supplier in Nottingham. The ...

CHANGE MANAGER - GREENFIELD PROJECTS

Change Manager - Application re-engineering - Change Consultant - Application Deployment - Transformation Engineer - Application Re-Engineering - ...

Digital Advertising Sales Executive Media London

The Role - Main Duties and Responsibilities: Selling online advertising space across our digital portfolio to new and existing clients and agencies ...

Agenda Setters 2009
Welcome to the ninth annual Agenda Setters poll – silicon.com's list of the top 50 most influential individuals in the technology and IT industries, from techies and CIOs to entrepreneurs and business leaders. Find out more in our latest special report.





Quick Sitemap Links: