The study is not about all bacteria, but specifically about gut bacteria, which, as it turned out, are just swarming on the streets. The sheer number of dogs owned by New Yorkers has caused such an unfavorable situation in the city (their numbers have increased dramatically during the pandemic). When they walk their pets, they leave behind feces. Sure, they clean up after their pets or face a $250 fine, but the bacteria still lingers on the sidewalks.
As one of the study’s authors, chemistry professor Alessandra Leri, told The New York Post, she and her students collected samples from the streets of the Upper East Side, home to the city’s most luxurious homes, as well as from carpets. and floors on the university campus to determine how clean they are. “We found an absolutely staggering number of bacteria,” Lehri said. She noted that they studied those sections of the streets that seemed clean. And the results of the experiment surprised them. Some 31,000 bacteria were found in a liter of rainwater collected by the students.
To understand the gravity of the situation: if 110,000 bacteria are found in bodies of water, nearby public beaches are subject to closure.
As the professor said, they even had to dilute the collected water samples “to get a measurable number, because there were a lot of bacteria in the pool.” “Enterococci are known pathogens. They themselves cause disease,” Leri added.
Walking down the street, people bring these bacteria into their homes. An “alarming level” of bacteria has been identified at building entrances. Especially a lot of them turned out to be on carpet surfaces.
It’s hard enough to get people to clean up after their pets, Leri says, and it’s much easier to change some other habits. “I think you could easily reduce the amount of bacteria in the house just by taking off your shoes when you go inside,” the professor said. This is especially important when there are small children who crawl on carpets and put everything that comes to hand in their mouths.
