Cart Hygiene

Protect yourself while grocery shopping! Many supermarket patrons are aware of the importance of cleanliness in a food environment. The market itself is subject to several rules and regulations related to Public Health, and they increase awareness of this by giving consumers an opportunity to participate in maintaining community hygiene. For those germ phobic among us, you may be aware of the rapid growth that microbes display on a number of surfaces. This includes, but most certainly is not limited to hands, doorknobs, toilet seats, counters, keyboards, and shopping cart handles. In an attempt to minimize direct contact with microbes, cart wipes have been made available to the public. These cart wipes are placed at the entrances to the store, near a cart line.

We placed our Public Health sticker on the wipe bucket of one of these dispensers at Winn Dixie. We chose this location because it defines the most common aspect of Public Health, Prevention. Dozens of people come into contact with each cart every day so a disease has the potential to flourish in such a high traffic zone. If everyone were to wipe their carts before shopping, common ailments (or rather contagious ones) would become less frequent and community health would statistically improve. Common errands are often a vector for some diseases, and wiping down a communal cart would be one less vector to worry about. Next time you go looking for groceries, think about who else has pushed your cart down the aisle, and WIPE IT DOWN.

Chelsea, Mercedez, Shannon, Matthew