Researchers conducting spot-check swabs have found fuel pump handles, pay-at-pump terminals and forecourt shop doors contain several strains of bacteria.
Among the nasties detected after the swabs were sent for analysis include E.coli, clostridium perfringen and salmonella, as well as faecal streptococci, found in the intestinal tracts of humans and animals.
The research, conducted by National Scrap Car, saw various spots at four forecourts in London, Nottingham and Manchester swabbed, with the samples then sent for laboratory analysis. While most of the samples “fell within an expected range for public surfaces which are naturally unsterile”, the presence of “faecal indicators” such as E.coli indicates “the need for better cleaning to limit the chance of illness” among customers.
The majority of the locations swabbed by the team resulted in fewer than 20 colony-forming units – the number of viable bacterial cells detected in a sample – being detected, but one diesel pump at a Nottingham forecourt was home to 1,720 CFUs of pseudomonas aeruginosa, a drug-resistant bacterium linked to cockroaches, and most likely to affect immunocompromised people, often impacting their airways.
Dorry Potter from National Scrap Car says the sites swabbed in London had the lowest bacterial counts, while Tomas Gabor, a director at industrial hygiene firm Sysco Environmental, says that while “it is unlikely that a Pseudomonas aeruginosa CFU count of 1,720 could make a healthy adult seriously ill”, such readings were high when “compared to a clean toilet seat”, where counts usually sit below 100 CFU per square centimetre.
