Gender-neutral lavatories are more dirty than men's and women's toilets, new ... trends now

Gender-neutral lavatories are more dirty than men's and women's toilets, a new study has claimed.

The study examined the levels of bacteria in various types of hospital toilets.  

Lavatories for women were found to carry far fewer microbes than those for men. For instance when staff toilets were compared, door handles for men were found to be around eight times as dirty as those for women.

The cleanest of all toilets were female staff toilets, thought to be due to more frequent handwashing.

However gender-neutral toilets, which included unisex and disabled, were the worst of all. The researchers think this may reflect heavier overall use, as well as different attitudes to cleanliness between men and women.

Professor Stephanie Dancer, a consultant microbiologist and researcher at NHS Lanarkshire said: 'The move to convert traditional male and female facilities to unisex facilities in some hospitals raises concern that people might be exposed to higher risks of contamination.

'Single sex and disabled toilets should be retained; with additional facilities labelled unisex and available for anyone. But based on this study's findings, I don't believe we should be abandoning single sex toilets in favour of unisex toilets, since these toilets had the highest microbial burden overall. 

'Our results appear to confirm what is generally thought in society: women clean because their perception of dirt and disgust entices action whereas men either don't notice a dirty environment or don't care. It follows that women are more likely to leave a bathroom 'clean',

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