Paper towel dispenser or Electric hand dryer: drying dilemma !

December 27th, 2012 by Shaun Day

HSD knows that in cafés, hotels and restaurants, every user of the toilet finishes their trip by drying their hands. Two different options are offered to them in this situation: an electric system (often called an electric hand dryer) and a paper towel dispenser.

Paper towel dispenser or hand dryer: How to dry your hands?

The answer to this question is one of the biggest concerns to solve when you have to decide which system you are going to choose in order to equip your public place.

Is it better to get a hand dryer or a paper towel dispenser?
From an eco-friendly but also a hygiene point of view, which washroom system is the best alternative to choose?

Experiment, electric hand dryer or basic paper?

A few years ago, an experiment was carried out by experts at the Environmental Resources Management Company (ERM). Around 130,000 uses have been compared for both systems: paper towel dispenser and electric hand dryer. In the first experiment, put your wet hands under the warm air produced by an electric hand dryer for 30 seconds and in the second experiment, grab 2 paper towels to dry your hands. This experiment was conducted over 5 years (!). Both drying systems were used 500 times weekly by random users. The objective of this experiment was to know which solution was the best between 30 seconds of warm air or 2 paper towels to dry hands. The conclusion of this experiment was that the electric hand dryer was more environmentally friendly than the paper towel dispenser. In 7 out of 8 criteria analysed, the electric hand dryer came out top (criteria tested: weather changes, acidification, ecotoxicity, toxicity for humans, nitrification and ozone). Only the final criteria regarding the resource deterioration are favourable to the classic paper towel. With regards to the CO2 emissions, the experiment showed us that, from the 130,000 users, the electric hand dryer generated around 1.6 tons of CO2 against 4.2 tons for the paper towel dispenser.

This experiment brings to light 2 conclusions:

The first one is, that any electric drying system can have a better eco-friendly impact if the energy used comes from renewable resources (wind turbine).
The second one would be, unlike paper or cardboard used to wrap parcels, most of the time the paper towels are not recycled. The used paper towels are incinerated or disposed of in a tip.

For everyone, the most important factor is to leave the toilet area with their hands completely dry. In order for the hand dryer to be hygienic, it is important for users to ensure their hands are dried correctly in order to avoid spreading bacteria with damp hands. To summarise an electric hand dryer may be more costly initially but over the years will be cheaper to run and is more environmentally friendly! You will also like another post about which water heating system to choose in order to equip your home or your workplace.

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Charlie says:

Jan 3rd, 2013 at 10:27 pm

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Concept Hygiene says:

Jan 26th, 2013 at 1:51 am

Thank you for sharing this. I have never thought that using hand dryers are more convenient than utilising paper towels. I've been using paper towels at work and have noticed that people are preferring to use it too. Well, thanks again for sharing this very informational post to us. :)
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