This was a pretty interesting read. I know in the past I have always avoided using any air blower due to the talk that air dryers were significantly more 'dirty'. This article was handy in finding...
This was a pretty interesting read. I know in the past I have always avoided using any air blower due to the talk that air dryers were significantly more 'dirty'. This article was handy in finding research by Redway so I could better understand the stance from independent research.
Some things that I have taken away from the research article:
People don't wash their hands effectively and hand dryers blow the germs around:
However, in reality the general public and some healthcare professionals do not always follow the advice. Washing procedures can be poor and compliance rates low (Knights et al. Unpublished data; Anderson et al. 2008).
If it is accepted that the hands become contaminated with micro‐organisms when using the toilet, these studies would indicate that, due to low compliance rates and inadequate hand cleansing procedures, the majority of persons drying their hands in washrooms are likely to have microbial contamination on their hands when they dry them. This has implications for the aerosolization and dispersal of that contamination by the hand‐drying method that is used and the risk of transmission of potentially disease‐causing micro‐organisms into the washroom environment and to other persons using the washroom.
From the Discussion section on the article
In each case, the jet air dryer produced significantly greater virus dispersal compared to the warm air dryer and paper towel devices. Combined results for all six heights tested showed that the jet air dryer produced over 60 times more viral plaques than the warm air dryer, and over 1300 times more than paper towels (P < 0·0001). The maximum numbers of plaques detected were at a height range of 0·75–1·25 m which would equate to the height of the face of a small child standing near the device when operated by their parent. Virus dispersal was detected up to 3 m from the jet air dryer. Combined results for all nine distances tested showed that the jet air dryer produced over 20 times more viral plaques than the warm air dryer, and over 190 times more than paper towels (P < 0·01). Combined results for the air counts after 15 min at the three sampling positions showed that the jet air dryer produced over 50 times more viral plaques than the warm air dryer, and over 100 times more than paper towels (P < 0·001). The number of PFU detected in the air showed exponential decline which would suggest that virus would still be present in the air beyond the 15‐min period used in this study.
And finally:
Although a bacteriophage model was used to demonstrate aerosolization and dispersal by three hand‐drying methods, the implications for the transmission of actual viral pathogens in washrooms are clear. The jet air dryer produced significantly greater dispersal at different heights and different distances than the warm air dryer or paper towels. The jet air dryer also produced significantly greater aerosolization of virus on the hands than the other two hand‐drying methods, with virus being detected 15 min after use. The results of this study suggest that in locations where hygiene and cross‐infection considerations are paramount, such as healthcare settings and the food industry, the choice of hand‐drying method should be considered carefully.
I can't speak to the research design and say whether it is flawed or not, but I will say the scales are more tilted toward high powered hand dryers being both way too expensive and not entirely 'clean'.
Not me. My main obsession is the dryness of my hands. To me, that is the primary concern when I consider how to dry my hands: how dry my hands will be after each method. And, in my personal...
For those making the decisions to purchase them, paper towels and hand dryers compete on other dimensions as well: cost, for instance, or eco-friendliness. But the public mind obsesses most over the cleanliness of the public bathroom.
Not me. My main obsession is the dryness of my hands. To me, that is the primary concern when I consider how to dry my hands: how dry my hands will be after each method. And, in my personal experience, I get dryer hands with paper towel than with any type of air-blower. The new super-jet air-blowers are better than the old air-blowers, but paper beats them both. I don't like walking out of a toilet with wet or moist hands.
And, if we're talking about hygiene... I read an article a long time ago which said that washing your hands only removes a small amount of the dirt & bacteria, with most of the dirt & bacteria being removed during the drying process. So, if I want clean hands, I want dry hands - which means paper towel.
There's also the fact that paper towel is more versatile than an air-blower, as this article mentions:
You could dab at spots on your tie, or dry a washed face, or wipe sweat from your brow.
I knew this was posted here somewhere. I thought it disappeared before I got the chance to write my comment. I'm honestly OK with hand dryers, but the problem is that most of them are pretty...
I knew this was posted here somewhere. I thought it disappeared before I got the chance to write my comment.
I'm honestly OK with hand dryers, but the problem is that most of them are pretty terrible. And that brings me to my only real problem with this article; the focus on Dyson.
Dyson's hand dryers are not good. They're clearly not terrible, but they are not particularly well designed. The original airblade v1 is a cheap knockoff of the Mitsubishi Jet Towel the article mentions, which works much better. The problem with the airblade is that it isn't really that powerful; in order to get your hands to dry significantly you have to put your hands against the nozzles, which is incredibly unsanitary. The Airblade v1 blows the water into a depression inside of itself, where it collects germs. The Airblade v2 has the nozzle against an obtuse angle, which further encourages you to touch the panel behind the nozzle. All they had to do was to use an Acute angle and it would have been a pretty decent design. The only hand dryer of theirs that I actually like is their faucet, which avoids all of these problems and actually improves the aesthetics of your average public restroom.
Of course, my real issue with Dyson dryers is that they feel like advertisements for their vacuums. They literally have outlines of their vacuum cleaners printed right onto the body where you are most likely to see it.
In any case, the competition between towels and dryers shouldn't really be either/or. If your bathroom has a doorknob, you need to have paper towels so you can open the door without directly touching the knob. Beyond that, people use paper towels for more than just drying their hands; sometimes you just need emergency facial tissue or need them to give you extra scrubbing power.
This was a pretty interesting read. I know in the past I have always avoided using any air blower due to the talk that air dryers were significantly more 'dirty'. This article was handy in finding research by Redway so I could better understand the stance from independent research.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jam.13014 (Full Article is Free!)
Some things that I have taken away from the research article:
From the Discussion section on the article
And finally:
I can't speak to the research design and say whether it is flawed or not, but I will say the scales are more tilted toward high powered hand dryers being both way too expensive and not entirely 'clean'.
Not me. My main obsession is the dryness of my hands. To me, that is the primary concern when I consider how to dry my hands: how dry my hands will be after each method. And, in my personal experience, I get dryer hands with paper towel than with any type of air-blower. The new super-jet air-blowers are better than the old air-blowers, but paper beats them both. I don't like walking out of a toilet with wet or moist hands.
And, if we're talking about hygiene... I read an article a long time ago which said that washing your hands only removes a small amount of the dirt & bacteria, with most of the dirt & bacteria being removed during the drying process. So, if I want clean hands, I want dry hands - which means paper towel.
There's also the fact that paper towel is more versatile than an air-blower, as this article mentions:
I knew this was posted here somewhere. I thought it disappeared before I got the chance to write my comment.
I'm honestly OK with hand dryers, but the problem is that most of them are pretty terrible. And that brings me to my only real problem with this article; the focus on Dyson.
Dyson's hand dryers are not good. They're clearly not terrible, but they are not particularly well designed. The original airblade v1 is a cheap knockoff of the Mitsubishi Jet Towel the article mentions, which works much better. The problem with the airblade is that it isn't really that powerful; in order to get your hands to dry significantly you have to put your hands against the nozzles, which is incredibly unsanitary. The Airblade v1 blows the water into a depression inside of itself, where it collects germs. The Airblade v2 has the nozzle against an obtuse angle, which further encourages you to touch the panel behind the nozzle. All they had to do was to use an Acute angle and it would have been a pretty decent design. The only hand dryer of theirs that I actually like is their faucet, which avoids all of these problems and actually improves the aesthetics of your average public restroom.
Of course, my real issue with Dyson dryers is that they feel like advertisements for their vacuums. They literally have outlines of their vacuum cleaners printed right onto the body where you are most likely to see it.
In any case, the competition between towels and dryers shouldn't really be either/or. If your bathroom has a doorknob, you need to have paper towels so you can open the door without directly touching the knob. Beyond that, people use paper towels for more than just drying their hands; sometimes you just need emergency facial tissue or need them to give you extra scrubbing power.