Mar. 5, 2011 (United Press International) -- Bacteria found on U.S. store shopping carts may be worse than some supermarket restrooms, a U.S. researcher says.
In a study funded by the Clorox Co. (NYSE:CLX) , Charles Gerba and colleagues at the University of Arizona in Tuscon swabbed shopping cart handles in four states looking for bacterial and of 85 carts examined, 72 percent were positive for fecal bacteria.
In one group of 36 shopping carts examined more closely, 50 percent had E.coli and a host of other types of bacteria, Gerba says.
"That's more than you find in a supermarket's restroom," lead researcher Charles Gerba, a professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona, told MSNBC.
"That's because they use disinfecting cleaners in the restrooms. Nobody routinely cleans and disinfects shopping carts."
To reduce the amount of bacteria, Gerba recommends shopping carts be wiped down with disinfectant.