How hygienic is it to put your baby in a shopping trolley?

As consumers, we don’t know if shopping trolleys are ever cleaned or not.  While sanitising trolley wipes go a long way to helping moms and dads, they are impractical when it comes to cleaning all the parts of trolleys that children touch

A mom’s perspective

“Often, while shopping with my daughter Reilly, she’d get bored with sitting in the trolley. Soon she’d start touching the trolley and then would put her hands straight into her mouth! When I saw retailers offering sanitising trolley wipes to shoppers, I wondered just how clean trolleys were,” mom Kerry Costa explains.

She investigated the issue and found startling statistics pointing to the dirtiness of shopping trolleys. She also visited local malls and saw trolleys stored in parking lots and used for packing shelves and fridges and transporting fresh produce waste.

More bacteria than a public restroom

Just think, trolleys are passed from hand to hand, all day, every day without the opportunity for disinfection. At the end of the day, a trolley has just as much (or even more) bacteria than a public restroom. Yuck!

Bacteria E.Coli can cause major infections

Researchers at the University of Arizona analysed the handlebars of 85 shopping carts and found fecal bacteria in 72% of them. With further analysis they determined that 50% of these bacteria corresponded to variations of E.Coli, along with other types of bacteria.

E.Coli is a bacteria that usually lives in the intestines of humans and animals. This bacterium has many varieties, some of which are harmless, but others however cause diarrhea because of their toxins.

Some varieties can cause severe diarrhea that can damage your intestines. The bacteria can also be found in vegetables and spread from person to person if the infected person has not washed their hands after going to the bathroom, contaminating surfaces such as handles of shopping trolleys for example.

Cover all surfaces with a trolley pouch

Kerry’s research prompted her to develop the ReillyRooz Shopping Trolley Pouch, which effectively covers all the areas of a trolley that young children (up to 4 years) sitting in the front seat are exposed to. The easy-to-assemble pouch slips easily into the seat and wraps over the handlebar of the trolley, offering a hygienic and comfortable shopping solution for both parents and their children.

For further information, visit ReillyRooz on Facebook or www.reillyrooz.co.za

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