It’s a fact of life that germs are everywhere and any item that you touch causes the transfer of germs from one location to another. I’ve found that many stores, including grocery stores now offer hand wipes to clean your hands as well as sanitize the handles of the cart that you wheel around the store. This makes sense considering the number of people that use these carts on any given day and also the fact that many kids sit in the carts near the handles. Who knows if they are sick or what germs are on their hands.

PureCart offers a solution for dirty grocery carts. Essentially, the system is a car wash for carts. As you wheel the cart through their unit, the cart gets coated with an FDA and EPA approved peroxide mist that kills 99.9% of the germs. According to Jim Kratowicz, president of PureCart, the peroxide is harmless and is broken down into carbon dioxide.

At only pennies per wash, the system would not be cost prohibitive for grocery stores to use and in fact, may foster a sense of safety and goodwill. At this time, there are less then 20 of these units in operation, but it may just be matter of getting the word out.

[PureCart via Oh Gizmo]