Paper Towels or Hand Dryers?

Was this supposed to be a question?

I think most people figured out a long time ago that those hot air hand dryers are germ machines.

I've always grabbed some napkins if I ever needed to use the restroom at a fast food joint, knowing that those places always had the germ spreaders.

Just wear 3 sets of surgical gloves and instead of washing your hands just strip a layer of latex....

One thing is clearly evident here.

This thread has exposed deep seated psychological problems regarding Mysophobia, or verminophobia, or germophobia, or bacillophobia and bacteriophobia, or whatever your favorite name is. City boys, I guess.

Perhaps sterile tongs and rubber gloves are your answer.

Reminds me of a joke.

Army guy(or pick you arm of the service) and Marine guy (or pick you arm of the service) are in the john at the urinals. They finish, and one (pick you arm of the service) washes his hands and the other starts to leave. Hand washer guy says, "hey, don't they teach you guys to wash your hands in the (pick you arm of the service)? The non-wash guys says, "no, they teach us not to pee on 'em."

GA!

As a child, and well into adulthood, I was totally unaware of the multitude of microorganisms on and in our bodies, and made zero effort to avoid adding to my existing collection. I grew up pretty much in the country; I went many places barefoot, and swam in ponds where visibility through the water was a fraction of an inch. I'm not aware of having suffered any negative consequences of those actions, except when I stepped barefoot on some weld electrodes in a genuine blacksmith shop.

I still rarely use gloves while gardening, and when I do, it is not to protect me from microbes, but to protect my thinning skin from tears and scratches.

I've long been convinced that the best way to deal with microorganisms is usually to acquire small doses through normal activity, and build up natural resistance. There's more to the story, but I won't go into that right now....

When I was young and stupid (I'm not young anymore) I exhibited at numerous trade shows held in exhibition centers. As an exhibitor I needed to shake hands with hundreds of people each exhibition day, so occasionally I would dwell longer in the washroom to observe their hand washing habits. To avoid suspicion of my motives I would re-tie my shoe laces, comb my hair, work on an imagined stain on my suitcoat to justify being there awhile. Here's the statistic, constant over ten years or so, of hand washing by males at trade shows:

After #1: 40% wash, 60% head straight for the door.

After #2: 30% wash, 70% head straight for the door. Yes, the higher risk activity is followed by LESS hand washing.

Summary: Two hands in three that I shook on my company's stand were unwashed despite a toilet trip, and the third hand probably smelled of Madonna's armpits.

I suspect that your somewhat transparent loitering tactics, and your targets suspicions about the intensions, had an effect on the statistical outcome.

Maybe they used wet-naps to avoid the sinks and dryers...?

I am more concerned about the germs residing on the exit door pushes that the hand dryer, i avoid touching them at all costs.

The real problem with hand dryers such as you have shown is there almost complete inability to achieve required dryness in a reasonable time frame, by contrast, these new airblade hand dryers are superb, if you haven't tried them, i suggest that you give them a go.

My apologies for the poor spelling in my earlier post, damned predictive text on my phone and sheer laziness on my part re. manual checking.

The air blade technology - along with filtering the air drawn into the device - sounds really good for the amount of particulate matter inhaled while in the restroom. If your hands are pretty dry, your cell phone and the washroom door contaminants likely won't colonize you and cause an infection. After all, the studies sample the surfaces and then put the samples in a growth medium - something you don't keep your hands saturated with on a daily basis - and then pronounce those devices the dirtiest sources for infection. It would be unethical to maintain the surfaces with infectious material (not talking Ebola here, just normal restroom airborne contamination) and see how many contacts are required for those contaminated surfaces to cause just ONE infection in a healthy immune system individual....no question public restrooms and public contact are bad for immuno-compromised individuals.

Well, now you've gone and done it!

You've ruined a lot of people's perfectly good phobias in one post.

While having a cookout at work, I took my pocket knife out to cut some meat on my plate. City girl sitting next went eeeeuu and asked me if my knife was clean. I gave her "the look" and said, "clean enough." (I grew up on a farm)

So is that a no, on appearing on an episode of Naked and Afraid???

If you've just finished drying your hands on your shirt/pants and your cell phone rings, remember this fact: Your Cell Phone Is 10 Times Dirtier Than a Toilet Seat | Time

Well, I'm going to avoid trade shows and continue to avoid sporting events and cell phones!

Yes a little bit of acid on the hands can really be traumatic....

Something which has bugged me for a long time about rest rooms is the ratio of wash hand basins to dryers.

How long does it take to wash your hands?

How long does it take to dry your hands?

Why are there so many more wash hand basins than dryers.

This one claims 5 - 15 seconds....with antibacterial...auto on...

let your immune system work.

I agree. Those children who are not exposed to multiple germs don't develop their immune system. This means that growing up going barefoot, playing in sandboxes that the neighborhood cats have used for litter boxes (find a turd, just throw it out and continue playing), and various other exposures accompanying outdoor activity means a more developed immune system, and likely results in less sickness in later life. But I often wonder if the more developed immune system results in more autoimmune diseases such as lupus and Crohn's?

Paper! Always use paper. And LOTS of it! It's safer, more energy efficient, and aesthetically pleasing. (Did I mention that I work in the paper industry?)

Definitely paper towels but for a different reason.

I live in Minnesota which is (was) a paper tree farming state. The other day one of my customers, which is a sawmill, told me about an investor who approached him about clear-cutting a 6500 acre, unharvested and overgrown tree farm he had just purchased. He wanted to develop it for a different purpose. The process used is to Bulldoze the trees into a big pile and burn them.

Many tree farms and paper mills are closing in this state, largely in part to the 'Save a Tree' slogan. People think they are saving that mighty old Oak tree in front of Gamma's house when they read that. They don't realize that paper trees are fast-growing hybrids that are farmed and replanted as soon as they are harvested.

Keypads on ATMs are apparently a great way to exchange bacteria. And also your food. At least if you live in NYC.

https://www.upi.com/ATM-keypads-covered-in-bacteria/9331479332277/

Breaking news! Stop the pixels!

Today a paper was published in the Journal of the Canadian medical Association finding that using a lot of household cleaning products, messes up kids' microbiome and can make them overweight.

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2018/09/17/Study-Household-products-associated-with-overweight-kids/7211537189194/

So being too clean can mess up your microbiome, and also using those chemicals to be too clean messes them up even more.

OK, start the pixels again. Whew.

Simple reason for dryer installations: $$$$!

No stock of paper towels required, no janitor or maintenance person required to restock empty dispensers.

Hot air dryers remove water by evaporation and direct air movement mainly downwards. In contrast, jet air dryers remove water through forces in opposite directions and dispersion into the air, and can generate speeds over 370 mph. According to the Westminster study, jet dryers, due to their speed and construction, spread an average of 60 times more of the tested virus than the warm air dryer, and 1,300 times more than paper towels. While the virus in the study was not dangerous, in reality, germs on hands often contain fecal matter, which can result in unpleasant and potentially dangerous illnesses such as norovirus or E. coli if contaminated hands come in contact with the nose or mouth.

The Great Debate: Paper Towels vs. Air Dryers | Facility Management