After being laid off, Tampa father invents a safe sanitizer for shopping carts

The Arch Cart Sanitation device.
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/CBS Miami)

Over the last several months, Adam Labadie has spent 15 hours a day on his computer and in his garage, creating an invention that will help the environment while keeping people healthy.

Labadie, a father of two from Tampa, was laid off at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. While at the grocery store, he saw a trash can overflowing with wipes used to sanitize shopping carts, and he recalled seeing the same wipes in the ocean while he went snorkeling. "I wanted to find another solution," Labadie told WFTS. He decided to create a sanitation device that would eliminate the need for wipes, and the Arch Cart Sanitizer was born.

Bacteria can flourish on the handles of shopping carts, and the Arch Cart Sanitizer uses an organic, FDA- and EPA-approved solution that kills COVID-19, Labadie said. He is now working on getting his invention out to national supermarket chains for demos, and his hope is that it will be in use at stores by November or December. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.