New Delhi, November 18, 2016: As World Toilet Day is marked on November 19, make sure to pledge to give up bad toilet habits like spending leisure time in bathroom, kicking toilet handles to flush, and urinating on the toilet seat and then not cleaning it.

K.E. Ranganathan, President, Sales and Marketing, Roca Bathroom Products Pvt Ltd, has listed some of the bad toilet habits that should be avoided:

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* Flushing is a good habit but keeping the seat cover down while doing so is better. Germs and other particles become airborne when flushed with the lid open. Various studies have found that flushing with the lid open can splash water particles as far as six feet away from the toilet, causing outspread of bacteria in the bathroom atmosphere. To limit this, lowering of the lid before flushing is an essential habit that one should adopt.

* Keeping your hands clean and flushing with your feet or shoes is a common practice which goes unnoticed most of the time. This keeps germs off your hands but not from the bottom of your shoes or feet, which later end up on the floor of your homes and personal spaces. Thus, making this exercise a futile one. Washing your hands thoroughly with soap after flushing is a good practice one should adopt as an infection control measure.

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* Living in the world of smartphones: Regular texting or scrolling through your mail in the toilet is common nowadays. But we are not aware that sitting for more than five minutes on the toilet, can increase the blood pressure in the anal veins. Apart from it, any object used or brought in the bathroom for a long time gets indirectly infected with the bacteria. You can always wash your hands after every bathroom break, but cannot disinfect the phone before you put it near your face for an incoming call.

* One of the most common unhygienic bathroom practises is urinating with the toilet seat down. This leads to spreading of bacteria on the seat which later transmits to our body when you use it next. Every individual needs to wipe off the toilet seat after using it to maintain the required amount of hygiene and cleanliness in the bathroom.

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* A good fragrance doesn't harm anyone. A musky or a flowery air freshener — whatever suits your senses — is a good way to vent off the bad odour in the toilet. (IANS)