Japan has taken its pride for cleanliness to a new level with toilet paper for smartphones.

    The hygiene* sheets sit in a dispenser next to the traditional roll and each piece lists instructions on how to properly clean your handset.

    Although it is just an experiment, the paper is in response to studies showing that smartphones carry at least 10 times more germs than toilets.

    The bizarre novelty is currently being tested in the arrivals terminal of Narita International Airport and are much smaller than traditional toilet paper.

    They were installed in 86 stalls of the seven restrooms by NTT Docomo, a mobile phone operator in Japan. Not only is the toilet paper used to wipe away germs from the screen, but it also includes information about Wi-Fi and a travel guide app, called “jspeak,” which has a voice translation function.

    In many cases, bacteria found on your smartphone is relatively harmless and comes from touching unclean surfaces or not washing your hands properly. But in others, the bacteria found can lead to infections such as food poisoning, impetigo* and even septicemia*.

    To study the level of dirt on a person’s phone, students studying bacteriology* at the University of Surrey imprinted their mobile phones on to so-called “bacterial growth medium” in Petri dishes*. After three days, they studied the bacteria that had grown in the dishes and were shocked by what they discovered.

    The average handset carries 18 times more potentially* harmful germs than a flush handle in a men’s toilet, recent tests revealed.

    (SD-Agencies)