Do you curl up with the lid up? You won’t after watching this: ScienceAlert

Scientists used a combination of green lasers and cameras to illuminate the effect a toilet flush has on its surroundings, and we doubt you’ll ever leave the lid up while you flush again after seeing the results.

The video clip produced by a team of researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in the United States, shows a flurry of tiny water droplets, invisible to the naked eye, flying out of the toilet bowl after flushing cistern It’s kind of super gross, if you think about what can be suspended in those little droplets.

“People have known that toilets emit aerosols, but they haven’t been able to see them.” says civil and environmental engineer John Crimaldifrom the University of Colorado Boulder.

“We show that this thing is a much more energetic and rapidly spreading plume than even people in the know understood.”

As the researchers themselves admit, there’s an “ick factor” here, enhanced by the eerie green glow of the laser light, but there’s also an important message about bathroom hygiene, both in private homes and public toilets that they often don’t have a lid.

Crimaldi and his fellow researchers are keen to stress that they are not epidemiologists, so there are no precise calculations here regarding the potential for the disease to spread. However, its visualization provides a graphical element other studies that attempt to estimate the qualities of bacteria-laden aerosols.

while previous studies have clearly established the potential for particles to escape from the toilet bowl during flushing, there is still much uncertainty about how these particles travel and where they might end up.

Two lasers were used: one that shone continuously into the toilet from above illuminating the scene, and one that sent fast pulses of light to the top of the toilet bowl to highlight the movement of particles. The high-resolution images were captured with cameras at the same time.

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The researchers showed droplets reaching a height of up to 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) after a discharge, traveling at speeds exceeding two meters (6.6 feet) per second in some places. Larger droplets settle into services more quickly, while smaller droplets can stay in the air for several minutes, the researchers showed.

“We had expected these aerosol particles to float, but they took off like a rocket.” says Crimaldi.

“The purpose of the toilet is to effectively remove waste from the bowl, but it’s also doing the opposite, which is spraying a lot of content upwards.”

There was nothing in the toilet bowl except water during the experiment. There was also no stall blocking the toilet, and no people moving around like there might be in a public toilet. In real life, all these variables would affect the droplet travel.

However, even in this rather artificial environment, there is clearly plenty of room for water, and anything it might carry, to escape from the toilet bowl, where it could end up stuck to surfaces. and the clothes

Researchers think more should be done to reduce the risk of pathogens like Escherichia coli, Clostridium difficile, norovirusi adenovirus diffusion in public bathrooms, with improved approaches to design, ventilation and disinfection of all options.

For these improvements to work effectively, it’s crucial to know where the water travels, which this study shows more dramatically than ever, and in a way we’ll never forget.

“If it’s something you can’t see, it’s easy to pretend it doesn’t exist.” says Crimaldi. “But once you see these videos, you’ll never think of a toilet the same way again.”

“By making dramatic visual images of this process, our study can play an important role in public health messaging.”

The research was published in Scientific reports.