Bacteria may need you to save energy when you do laundry, but not for the right reasons. A new publication in Applied and Environmental Microbiology has shown how bloodless bacteria can be with fewer hot washing machines, such as those that save energy.
The publication reports what happened in a German children’s hospital. There, a study team from the University Hospital of Bonn in Germany knew over a period of one year (from April 2012 to May 20) thirteen cases of newborns and a child older than a newborn. using antibiotic-resistant editing of the bacterium Klebsiella oxytoca.
Klebsiella oxytoca or KO for short is usually discovered in the intestine, mouth or nose. But as all microbiology experts know, if this bacteria leaves your gut, it can knock you unconscious. KO can cause wounds, lung and urinary tract infections. which can be serious and even fatal in those who do not have a strong immune system. And antibiotic-resistant versions can be quite difficult to treat. The spread of those bacteria is becoming less and less unusual in healthcare settings. it would be a proper reaction if you hear about other people colonized through KO.
Further research detected this same type of bacteria in the washing device used to wash the clothes of those newborns, especially in the clothes drawer and on the rubber seal of the door. It should be noted that this device was not the same old high-temperature washing device. imposed through the hygiene rules of German hospitals, however, it is a popular household washing device. Once the hospital got rid of this household washing device, the transmission of K. oxytoca stopped. Therefore, it is a wash, the washing device seemed to be the culprit of delivering the KO to the newborns.
The challenge seemed to be the heat and not the humidity of the washing device, so to speak. As the researchers reported, many bacterial strains can remain in humid environments for fairly long periods of time, in addition to the washing process, if high enough temperatures are not achieved. ined. Although the washing device had a “65°C washing program,” the rubber coating of the device and the rubber seal on the door probably didn’t seem to be successful at that temperature. As a result, antibiotic-resistant bacteria were necessarily discovered in a warm, warm environment. humid environment and in a broth rich in nutrients. This can be like avocado toast and bacteria slats.
While it’s unclear how the antibiotic-resistant bacteria were administered in the washing device in the first place, this case report showed how washing devices can help spread those bacteria. In other words, when it is not well designed or works well, a washing device may only do the opposite of what is intended and serve as a giant bacterial centrifuge. Now it’s a dirty thought.
This brings us to “energy efficient” washing machines that can get less heated, literally and figuratively. As the ENERGY STAR website explains, washing machines that are ENERGY STAR certified “use 25% less energy and about 33% less water than popular models, a variety of complicated cleaning methods. Certified dryers use around 20% less energy and incorporate complex features that combine less heat with sensor drying to prevent over-drying, saving energy and reducing unnecessary wear on clothes. Sounds wonderful from a load and power perspective, but to what extent can washing capacity be compromised?
Here’s a news segment from KTNV Channel thirteen Las Vegas covering some dirty court cases about “energy efficient” washing machines that “clean efficiently”:
In a word, “puaj”. Simply put, “yuckuck” is what you can say.
When designing a generation, it’s vital not to be like a selfie and focus too much on one or two things. Dealing with a facet of a generation, such as its charging power and energy, without fully contemplating other vital elements, such as cleanliness capacity, can lead to more problems. As I’ve written before for Forbes, the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a major problem, and public fitness officials have been looking for tactics to prevent or at least slow that spread. Finding that washing devices can actually facilitate the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria may be just an “oh beep” moment, as it only takes one beep on a garment for everything else to get infected if the washing device is rarely doing its job.