Inventor Hopes To Clean Up
Michael Dean is hitting the market with an invention that could shake the floor mat world. He says the mat he invented kills most germs on contact.
The idea came eight years ago, when Dean noticed the intense filth and grime of Manhattan sidewalks, then realized he and others were tracking the dirt, and attendant bacteria, onto the apartment floor where his children crawled and played.
The result of years of thought and research — and costs Dean would characterize only as “well into six figures” — is this: a mat with two sections, including one that holds a chemical said to kill 99.1 percent of germs.
Part of the mat holds chemicals that kill germs on shoe bottoms. Any residual moisture is dried by stepping onto a second part of the mat.
Voila! Bacteria-free shoe bottoms.
But the BioStep now being manufactured by Apache Mills Inc., a company in Georgia that proudly proclaims itself one of the nation’s largest floor mat manufacturers, will be targeted first at state and federal governments.
Dean envisions the BioStep at airports, military sites and government building entrances.
Photo by Skip Dickstein.
Fred333 on October 18th, 2007 8:21 am
Sounds like a neat idea. I really don’t know how practical it is though. Tough to keep the elements form getting in.
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