Well, my company has instituted a new cost-cutting measure and they’ve stopped providing disposable cups at the coffee stations.
Here is the pertinent part of the email we received (bolding mine):
The problem is that there is no place to wash them except for the bathroom. There is no usable kitchenette anywhere in the building.
Now we all know about the toilet aerosol. Ewww. I’m no germophobe, but after reading that, I started keeping my toothbrush in the medicine cabinet. And as far as I can see, it’s just plain unsanitary. There does seem to be a legitimate risk of oral-fecal contamination when washing dishes in the bathroom.
Now, it’s not like I’ve never rinsed out a cup in the bathroom before, but I did that at my own risk. It wasn’t official company policy.
Also, there is no dish soap provided in the bathroom, only hand soap. I don’t know if this makes a difference or not in terms of removing germs, but the hand soap is scented and “moisturizing.” That’s not appropriate for dishwashing. (But my coffee cup feels and smells uncommonly attractive.)
And I should say–this is not some mom-and-pop operation or something. This is the U.S. headquarters of a worldwide corporation which does about $17 billion in sales each year.
Can anybody point me toward any resources that support the idea that it is inappropriate to ask employees to wash their cups in the bathroom? Is there something from the health department? Any laws? I’m in New Jersey if it matters.
Not that any of it will make a damn bit of difference. Even if I did offer some official documentation, they’d probably just say that we’re free to provide our own disposable cups if we want. It’s just for my own satisfaction.
Maybe this won’t be sanitary enough for you, but we had a similar situation when I was in grad school. I just wiped out my cup with a paper towel every day, and took it home on the weekends to run through the dishwasher.
No cite, but I do remember hearing that typically, there are way more germs at the bottom of a kitchen sink than anywhere in the house/building. And this has been proven many times on “How Clean is Your House,” when they take actual samples from sinks and toilets. No matter how rank the toilets are, they always contain fewer/less dangerous germ than the kitchen sink.
You realize this ceases to be true if you use the bathroom to wash dishes.
But the gist of it all is, you can wash your dishes anywhere there is clean water and soap. Don’t forget to let the dishes dry before stowing them.
Honestly, I’d start carrying my own mug, bring it in every morning, take it home every night. Maybe get one of those thermal mugs, put your own morning coffee in it, reuse it through the day, tote it back out.
I applaud the goal of eliminating use of paper products, but it’s not that hard to put in an appropriate sink.
Where does the water come from to make the coffee?
If you are really that concerned, the various wholesale clubs sell coffee cups and lids in bulk. Buy them and bring them in monday morning in whatever amount you need for the week and keep the spares locked in your desk.
I’m not concerned about the risk to myself.
I’m asking for help in finding cites to show that this is not appropriate as a standard practice.
It isn’t about how sanitary/risky it actually is, but whether it’s appropriate for a company to officially ask people to do this.
tumbleddown–The coffee machines are plumbed in.
aruqvan–If I were that committed to using disposable cups, I’d just steal them from the caf. I’m using the mug like a good soldier.
Er, doesn’t that rather defeat the whole idea of sustainability?
Toilet aerosol shmoilet aeroshmol. If it was seriously a problem then the human race wouldn’t have lasted long after the advent of indoor plumbing.
Wash your mug, dry it out with a paper towel and get out of the bathroom. If you’re that worried, cover it with the paper towel till you get out of the bathroom.
Apart from anything else, you’re going to be pouring near-boiling water into the mug!
They are not asking you to wash your cup in the bathroom. They just aren’t leaving you any alternative. Since the coffee maker is plumbed, I would push for them to install some sort of small basin next to it.
The only thing inappropriate about washing mugs in the bathroom is if you’re a guy and you’re doing the washing in the ladies’ bathroom. (or vice versa).
Seriously… what do you do about washing your hands in the bathroom? They’re exposed to just as much “aerosol contamination” as your cup would be, and you have two chances to reinfect them before you leave (first on the sink handles and second on the bathroom door handle).
But I do want to be helpful and not just snarky. A gallon of water with a few tablespoons of bleach will sanitize just about anything. You could set up a new bucket each day to share with coworkers. Isopropyl/rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball or paper towel might be a more practical solution for at your desk. Or, you could pour enough of the rubbing alcohol over the cup while in the bathroom and let it air dry on your way back to the desk.
Alcohol is the primary (if not the only) active ingredient in most of those waterless hand sanitizers people buy. It is extremely effective at killing microorganisms by deydrating them.
A company doesn’t have a responsibility to provide coffee or cups. They can stop providing either or all without them being in the wrong. Nothing prevents you from supplying for yourself what they stop providing. Bring in disposable cups and flaunt it if you want.
Maybe this is a hair rude, but if you’re not concerned about yourself personally, then why do you care? From your OP, it appears clear that you’re not in any way making the decision, so you don’t need to do diligence to make sure it’s appropriate.
So again, if you personally understand that your hands are going to be at least as ‘germy’ and ‘unsanitary’ as mugs washed in the sink, and that there’s no real health threat from washing mugs in the sink, why exactly are you asking?
Because this is General Questions, where we ask general questions. Do you think Ranchoth really wants to have his corpse skeletonized so he can leave it to his next of kin? He’s just curious. Green Bean is just curious too.
This had to be the brainchild idea of someone with a limited future at your company. The net cost savings of eliminating disposable cups at the coffee stations at the HQ won’t even scratch the surface of costs of a $17 billion company. They should be focusing on extending the payment terms with the company’s top 5 suppliers by just one day, which would have an impact of about 100,000x greater than eliminating disposable cups.
Wax coated paper coffee cups are made out of the type of trashwood trees they plant when they cut the real forests down, claiming they are restoring the forest for future harvest. [why yes I did used to get into serious arguments with my exmother in law who worked for weyerhauser… why do you ask?]
And as such theoretically paper coffee cups are sustainable. It is the plastic recyclable lids that are unsustainable if they do not have a recycle bin for plastics.