Gas stations are visited by many individuals in a given day, and with them come germs. You may think that the public toilet seat would be the culprit to many of those germs but in reality, gas pump handles are considered more than 10,000 times dirtier than toilet seats. Yuck!

How Dirty Is a Gas Pump Handle?

The surfaces on gas pump handles are among the dirtiest commonly touched areas in public. A study commissioned by Kimberly-Clark found that 71% of gas pump handles it tested to be “highly contaminated” with the germs connected with illness and disease. Based on lab results, the tested pump handles contained an average of 2 million colony-forming units (CPUs) per square inch. Of those, about half are the type of germs that can cause disease and infection. By comparison, the standard public toilet seat contains an average of just over 172 CFUs of those germs per square inch.

In light of the coronavirus pandemic, awareness of cleanliness is at an all-time high and retail operations are placing hand sanitizers at checkout counters and other locations throughout the store to help stop the spread of illness-causing germs. Face coverings and hand sanitizers are doing their job inside the store, but what about outside, at the pump?

The Solution: Windshield Service Centers

Commercial Zone has the solution – Aruba windshield service centers. These rugged 42-gallon trash containers with integrated full-service windshield cleaning kits are also equipped with Clean Solutions dispensers for hand sanitizer and disposable gloves, which help protect customers from pump handle germs.

“We know it’s not always practical for customers to go into the store to wash their hands after pumping gas,” said Joe Crum, Director of Marketing and eCommerce for Commercial Zone. “But we also know that hand washing is essential to helping stop the spread of disease. Stations that install Aruba receptacles with Clean Solutions are not only helping protect their customers, they’re making a bold statement that they care about their good health.”

Aruba 5 is equipped with one windshield-cleaning kit and incorporates hand sanitizer and gloves dispensers on two sides of the unit to service both sides of the pump. Aruba 6 features two full-service windshield cleaning kits and dispensers for hand sanitizer and gloves on one side of its dome lid.

“Once you see the data and realize just how many germs live on pump handles, you can also see how important it is to provide cleaning options for customers right at the pump,” Crum said.