The past year put hand hygiene in the spotlight. Due to the pandemic, many people realized that their hand-washing practices were not optimal and had to relearn how to properly wash their hands. We saw various instructions online, ranging from all sorts of movements that we should be doing to singing songs while washing our hands to ensure we have washed them for long enough.
However, just washing our hands is not enough to stop the spread of germs. Drying them is also important seeing as how wet hands spread germs more easily. With that in mind, we should properly dry our hands as well after we wash them.
But, which method of drying our hands works best? Well, there seems to be an ongoing debate about whether paper towels are better than air dryers. While the answer might be complex, your goal is to completely dry your hands, which can be done using both methods. Here is what you need to know about the paper towels vs. air dryers debate.
The hygiene aspect
For starters, you surely want to know which option is more hygienic.
There is a general belief that paper towels are much more hygienic and there is plenty of research that supports this claim. As bacteria can breed more readily on wet hands, it’s vital that our hands are completely dry. What is more, studies suggest that the majority of adults don’t wash their hands long enough in order to be completely free of viruses and bacteria. By using a paper towel, it is thought that we can get rid of some of the remaining pathogens. Rubbing your hands with a paper towel can kill them as well as remove them from your hands.
These claims are based on the research that shows that air dryers can spread bacteria from the air to your hands and actually increase the amount of bacteria that we come into contact with. A 2018 study from the American Society for Microbiology also supposes that bacteria can travel between rooms and spread various pathogens around buildings. It’s not uncommon for people to flush the toilet while the lid is still up and that allows the pathogens to go into the air and onto our hands. Additionally, paper towels can also be used to open doors and turn off faucets.
However, there is also research that shows that there is virtually no difference between paper towels and air dryers when the latter are used properly. For example, there are now new models of hand dryers that can dry our hands very quickly. Moreover, using paper towels relies heavily on how the person uses them to dry their hands. For instance, many people don’t dry the areas between their fingers and under their nails. Air dryers, on the other hand, rely less on the user and dry our hands evenly.
What is more, in certain cases, the paper towel dispenser might get stuck. That means that the user would have to reach into the dispenser to get a piece and thus touch both the dispenser and potentially other towels with their wet hands, which can then transfer germs to the dispenser and other people. While this is something that can be prevented with automatic dispensers, paper towel dispensers are often not stocked so people leave the bathroom with wet hands and that is certainly unhygienic.
To lower the concern about using hand dryers, you should ensure the bathroom where you install it has good ventilation, air purifiers, and potentially even self-closing toilet lids. Furthermore, the type of hand dryer you get also plays a big role. For example, according to research, jet hand dryers that have the ability to blow the water off the users’ hands are very effective in removing bacteria from wet hands, when compared to those models that evaporate it.
Price comparison
Secondly, if you’re a business owner that needs to equip a commercial bathroom, you are surely interested in how much each method will cost you. When calculating the costs, there are several things to take into account. For example, think about how many people pass through the bathroom on a daily basis.
On the one hand, opting for paper towels means that you will have to constantly be stocked up. Of course, you will not need the same amount of paper towels if you run an office with ten employees and a fast-food restaurant that sees hundreds of guests on a daily basis. Let’s say your ten-employee business needs to purchase hand towels. If each employee washes their hands four times a day and uses three towels each time, you will need around 31,200 towels a year. But, the number is much higher if you run a fast-food joint where hundreds of people can use the bathroom 24/7. For instance, if you get 300 visitors a day and each of them uses five towels, you will need almost half a million towels per year. How much you will have to pay depends on how much paper towels cost in your area. What is more, you would also have to pay for staff that will replenish and maintain the dispenser as well as get waste bins and lining for the dispensers.
On the other hand, purchasing air dryers will require a bigger upfront investment, which could present an obstacle for your company’s smaller budget. Moreover, you will have to think about how much electricity they use and look into the models you get. In addition, you cannot forget about regular maintenance to ensure they are clean and work smoothly. However, once they are installed, you don’t have to worry about restocking them and purchasing towels frequently.
With all of this in mind, it’s easy to see how each method has its purpose. While smaller companies might benefit from paper towels, businesses that see more traffic are better off with a quality commercial hand dryer . Therefore, it’s essential to think about whether paying for paper towels regularly is a more financially sound decision than installing air dryers and paying for electricity.
Noise considerations
In addition to the price and hygiene, paper towels and hand dryers can also be compared according to the noise they produce.
There is no surprise here as paper towels produce absolutely no sound. They can be pulled out silently and using them does not affect the people in the bathroom and surrounding rooms at all.
Hand dryers, on the other hand, do produce sounds, which can make them unsuitable for certain areas. For example, they perhaps should not be used in hospitals, spas, and similar institutions where everyone is trying to feel rested and relaxed. Moreover, if the walls are very thin, air dryers can also create a disturbance. What is more, certain individuals like young children and people on the autism spectrum might find the sounds produced stressful. However, it should be stressed that there are also hand dryers that are quiet and have been awarded the Quiet Mark.
Additionally, in some places, there is no background music in toilets, which can make going to the bathroom very stressful for anxious toilet goers. The sounds of a hand dryer can be quite welcome when someone is trying to relieve themselves in a crowded bathroom.
The impact on the environment
When making your decision, you might also care about how you are impacting the planet.
Research into the carbon emissions that are produced by paper towels estimates that every time we use a paper towel to dry our hands we create, on average, 56 grams of carbon dioxide. To create paper towels, we are chopping down virgin trees, transport them to processing facilities, use a massive amount of energy and water to produce and package towels, further distribute them to warehouses and customers, and repeat the same process when we need more. Plus, as they cannot be recycled, they usually end up in a landfill. However, they could be composted but it’s important to implement the right practices in order to be sustainable.
Alternatively, using an air dryer can result in anywhere between 9 and 40 grams of carbon dioxide emissions, which means that this method of drying our hands is much greener. Then, while air dryers don’t add to the landfills, they do use energy which is often created thanks to non-renewable sources. If you can implement eco-friendly ways of powering your company such as solar and wind power, this approach is much more sustainable. There are also energy-efficient models available on the market if you want to save some money on bills as well. Lastly, it’s important to note that traditional warm air hand dryers are simply not as effective and environmentally friendly as modern jet hand dryers.
So, to conclude, what is better to use? While air dryers are more efficient, many people don’t like waiting for some 40 seconds to have their hands dried. On the other hand, while paper towels make no noise, they end up in landfills and can set you back a lot as they need to be purchased regularly. In the end, it all depends on your needs. With that in mind, no matter which method you opt for, make sure your hands are completely dry.