Microbial Contamination of Tableware in Households

Objectives To study the situation of microbial contamination on tableware in households.

Methods Tableware samples cleaned manually in 187 household were collected in Beijing and Shanghai to analyze the microbiological quality.

Results The aerobic plate counts for each tableware were in the range of 45 cfu/piece-5.20×10⁶cfu/piece in Beijing, and were < 15 cfu/piece~6.99×10⁶cfu/piece in Shanghai. The positive rate of staphylococcus aureus was 3.21% and that of Escherichia coli was 11.23%.There were 20 species of bacteria detected from samples, most of which were conditioned pathogens.

Conclusions It highlighted the potential for contamination and risk of tableware after manual cleaning in households. Something should be done to reduce the risk to ensure human health.