There’s a University of Cork study showing that putting the lid down aerosolises more material so spreads bacteria etc. over the whole room, whereas having the lid open produces a smaller number of larger droplets that nearly all just fall straight back into the toilet. The lid is not sealing the toilet and preventing the need to clean the bathroom.
I can’t get the full text, but https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/acmi/10.1099/acmi.fis2019.po0192 has the abstract. It looks like I misremembered its findings (or remembered an article that oversimplified them), though - having the lid down does something to the released particles to make more of them stay airborne for much longer, but it does reduce the number that escape, like you’d expect.
My comment was explicitly pointing out that closing the lid can have the opposite of the intuitive effect and make things worse even though you’d expect it to make them better. It seems that I misrepresented the study’s findings, though, as while closing the lid does make particles remain airborne for much longer, so my overall point is sound, closing the lid does reduce the number of particles that initially become airborne.
That’s not the conclusion the study’s authors drew. The particles being airborne for longer means they can float further and contaminate things further away from the toilet, and also are more likely to end up inhaled. That could be a bigger problem than the number of particles initially released, so the study didn’t make a recommendation of whether the lid should be up or down. More research is required before anyone should be issuing definitive commands in bold to strangers on the internet.
There’s a University of Cork study showing that putting the lid down aerosolises more material so spreads bacteria etc. over the whole room, whereas having the lid open produces a smaller number of larger droplets that nearly all just fall straight back into the toilet. The lid is not sealing the toilet and preventing the need to clean the bathroom.
Can you link that study please?
I can’t get the full text, but https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/acmi/10.1099/acmi.fis2019.po0192 has the abstract. It looks like I misremembered its findings (or remembered an article that oversimplified them), though - having the lid down does something to the released particles to make more of them stay airborne for much longer, but it does reduce the number that escape, like you’d expect.
I think I did not understand your comment. Isn’t it the other way around?
My comment was explicitly pointing out that closing the lid can have the opposite of the intuitive effect and make things worse even though you’d expect it to make them better. It seems that I misrepresented the study’s findings, though, as while closing the lid does make particles remain airborne for much longer, so my overall point is sound, closing the lid does reduce the number of particles that initially become airborne.
Significantly – 30-50%.
So to be clear: close the lid
That’s not the conclusion the study’s authors drew. The particles being airborne for longer means they can float further and contaminate things further away from the toilet, and also are more likely to end up inhaled. That could be a bigger problem than the number of particles initially released, so the study didn’t make a recommendation of whether the lid should be up or down. More research is required before anyone should be issuing definitive commands in bold to strangers on the internet.
No it’s not.