Hand dryers or paper towels?
Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2023 9:18 pm
A riveting topic of discussion, and one that I'm sure sparks fierce debate whenever two or more people congregate in a public bathroom - which is better, hand dryer or paper towel? How do we even quantify 'better'? From an environmental perspective? Or disease prevention? Or speed of drying? Or something else I've not even thought of?
It's been something I've been pondering off and on for a while and I was hoping the hivemind might have some ideas and help me reach a definitive conclusion.
I've mostly been considering it from an environmental perspective but even then it's not easy. Working out how all-encompassing to go is my first sticking point. Do you just count the environmental cost of the components for the dryer vs the paper towels and dispenser or do you look at the environmental cost of the equipment needed to produce those construction materials too? (i.e. do you just look at the impacts of the mining and logging or also at the cost of producing the mining and logging equipment?). Then there's also the end of life to consider. Paper towels are incinerated or put into landfill. Do you just consider the direct environmental cost of the incineration/putting into landfill or do you include the environmental cost of creating and maintaining the incinerator/landfill? Do you assume that dryers are recycled or are just disposed of, their components destroyed? How broad a scope do you go? And even when you've decided on the scope, how exactly do you go about quantifying things like carbon emissions for each step in the production, utilisation and destruction of the dryer/hand towel?
From a disease perspective, I've seen some suggestions that dryers can spread disease by making viruses airborne. Is this a real concern based on evidence or just a theoretical one? Does an overflowing bin of soggy hand towels pose more of a risk than a dispersed viral load? Does it just turn a low risk that everyone is exposed to, to a higher risk that only really affects the cleaners? If so, which is preferable?
Then you've got the human angle - do most people even use these hand drying options or just stick with the tried and trusted method of drying on their trousers? Is giving people the option of hand towels or dryer a good compromise? Or one that leaves both going relatively unused? Is letting people walk out with wet hands something to even be worried about - are wet hands a higher risk for spreading disease than dry? If so, is it a clinically significant difference or just a statistically significant one?
I've had a little look at the literature out there on the topic and it is, maybe unsurprisingly, quite sparse from what I can tell. And a lot of the comparisons discuss older dryers rather than the more modern Dyson airblade and alternatives. Are their efficiencies enough to make them definitively better? Or are they still too slow to compete with a quick grab of the paper towels as you walk out?
Does anyone have an answer? Or even any idea of how to reach an answer? Do you know any useful literature?
Please help!!!
It's been something I've been pondering off and on for a while and I was hoping the hivemind might have some ideas and help me reach a definitive conclusion.
I've mostly been considering it from an environmental perspective but even then it's not easy. Working out how all-encompassing to go is my first sticking point. Do you just count the environmental cost of the components for the dryer vs the paper towels and dispenser or do you look at the environmental cost of the equipment needed to produce those construction materials too? (i.e. do you just look at the impacts of the mining and logging or also at the cost of producing the mining and logging equipment?). Then there's also the end of life to consider. Paper towels are incinerated or put into landfill. Do you just consider the direct environmental cost of the incineration/putting into landfill or do you include the environmental cost of creating and maintaining the incinerator/landfill? Do you assume that dryers are recycled or are just disposed of, their components destroyed? How broad a scope do you go? And even when you've decided on the scope, how exactly do you go about quantifying things like carbon emissions for each step in the production, utilisation and destruction of the dryer/hand towel?
From a disease perspective, I've seen some suggestions that dryers can spread disease by making viruses airborne. Is this a real concern based on evidence or just a theoretical one? Does an overflowing bin of soggy hand towels pose more of a risk than a dispersed viral load? Does it just turn a low risk that everyone is exposed to, to a higher risk that only really affects the cleaners? If so, which is preferable?
Then you've got the human angle - do most people even use these hand drying options or just stick with the tried and trusted method of drying on their trousers? Is giving people the option of hand towels or dryer a good compromise? Or one that leaves both going relatively unused? Is letting people walk out with wet hands something to even be worried about - are wet hands a higher risk for spreading disease than dry? If so, is it a clinically significant difference or just a statistically significant one?
I've had a little look at the literature out there on the topic and it is, maybe unsurprisingly, quite sparse from what I can tell. And a lot of the comparisons discuss older dryers rather than the more modern Dyson airblade and alternatives. Are their efficiencies enough to make them definitively better? Or are they still too slow to compete with a quick grab of the paper towels as you walk out?
Does anyone have an answer? Or even any idea of how to reach an answer? Do you know any useful literature?
Please help!!!