Sickening truth about filth in the office

Your keyboard is dirtier than a toilet seat - do you really want to know more?

Computers are so dirty it is a wonder any of us are still alive, judging from the latest bid to promote cleaning products.

There could be more germs lurking on your desk and keyboard than there are on a toilet seat, according to a German company called Durable .

Yet nine in 10 of us eat lunch at our desks and 22 per cent of us prepare food at the office without washing our hands, according to a survey carried out by the company. Other filthy facts to put you off going to work:

• There are an average 25,127 (not one more nor less) germs per square inch on a telephone compared with 49 per square inch on a toilet seat.

• Seventy-two per cent of us pick our noses at work.

• Favourite places for germs are phones, desktops, keyboards and computer mice.

• Printer buttons tend to have the biggest density of germs.

• Sixty per cent of time off work is caused by illnesses contracted from dirty office equipment, according to research done by the University of Arizona.

Stewart Anderson, Durable's vice-president of marketing described the survey results as shocking. "We are encouraging bacteria to multiply at disease-causing rates."

Durable has unilaterally declared 18-23 September to be UK National Computer Cleaning Week, during which we are all urged to buy its cleaning products. Provided, of course, we are still alive.

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