Jak: why you should cut that wristband from Lowlands

You have those messages that pop up every year. The giant tick is making a comeback and is chasing you. There are bed bugs swarming in your suitcase or in that hotel room, and there's no better time to talk about the infamous festival wristband again. Half of the Netherlands is, after all, getting rained on at Lowlands this weekend and will show for at least another five months that they were there by keeping the band on for a while longer. It can only come off around Christmas. Well, think again. Let's do a refresher course, because it's not fresh.

The festival wristband cannot come off. That's where the dirt begins, because a wash at sixty degrees will never get it clean. Unless you want to stick your wrist in boiling water. No, right? I didn't think so either. Microbiologist Alison Cottel took the wristbands into the lab to subject them to research, and what turned out? Up to 10,000 bacteria were sometimes detected on the wristbands. That's about twenty times more than on a normal piece of clothing. The festival memorabilia can cause infections or boils or blisters or even food poisoning. In a few cases, even, how nice, the poop bacteria were found again.

So I wish you a shower and a pair of scissors upon your return, bye bye, have a nice weekend.