Aeon Retail Co. has developed an automated shopping basket sanitizer that disinfects baskets with ultraviolet light.
The device supplements the retailer's precautions against the spread of the new coronavirus and promotes safer shopping practices. It can sterilize a batch of 60 shopping baskets in about 12 minutes, the firm said.
When switched on, the device lifts each shopping basket and disinfects it -- including the back of the handle -- using ultraviolet light.
At Aeon outlets, store employees have been wiping each basket one by one to sterilize them. But as the number of used baskets totals about 10,000 per day at large stores, sanitizing baskets by hand is an extreme burden for employees.
The device was developed jointly with a manufacturer in Kyoto. It has already been installed in some stores in Kyoto and Saitama prefectures, and will be expanded to 14 of its stores by the end of this year.
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