This debate has been going on for years and years. Hand dryers have always been popular for their economic benefits. Hand dryers can save any given facility upwards of 90 percent in operation costs when compared to paper towels. Hand dryers also alleviate the majority of the maintenance element in the restroom. There are no paper towels to restock. There are no used paper towels to be disposed of. Also, this will stop the problem of paper towels being thrown into the toilet which will cause problems with clogging of the toilets. There are large amounts of money that can be saved by choosing hand dryers over paper towels.
Another huge factor in the benefits of using hand dryers is environmental. Used paper towels cannot be recycled or reused. It has been stated that an everyday fast food restaurant which uses paper towels will go through the equivalent of nine full grown trees that would have been cut down. The waste from these paper towels is equivalent to 1000 pounds of landfill waste. The general public does not think about this or the consequences that follow. In addition paper towels go through chemical cleansing before they are used. This process uses approximately 20,000 gallon of water per each ton of paper towels.
Hand dryers are also more hygienic than paper towels and have the ability to fully dry the hands of the user. Paper towels will leave damp and wet crevices with in the hands. Warm hand dryers will provide warm air that can penetrate all the crevices on the skin. The warm air of the hand dryer can also reduce and eliminate micro organisms and germs. Research leads us to believe that warm hand dryers are a healthier and more economical choice for restrooms.
In recent years hand dryers have made quite a leap in technology and evolution. In earlier years hand dryers have been known to take quite a long time to fully dry hands. This seemed to be a valid problem, as patience is truly a virtue. However, hand dryers have come quite a way since then. We now have high traffic area industrial hand dryer that can fully dry ones hand within 10 seconds. This is a huge advancement in the hand dryer industry. The slogan could be, “Use a hand dryer! No patience necessary!” Another huge factor in the evolution of the hand dryer industry is the decibel level. Hand dryers have been known to be noisy and distracting. New advancements in this state of the art hand dryers allows for super fast drying without all the noise. This is a faster hand dryer and a quieter hand dryer. Another wonderful progression is the look of the new hand dryers. The newer hand dryers have style and prestige. The hand dryer industry is taking a virtual step into the future. These new hand dryers are sleek and smooth. The hand dryers have a low slim profile and some look completely different. For instance there are some new hand dryers that you actually put your hand inside. The air shoots form either side and when you remove them, they are dry.
Today’s Hand Dryers will dry hands in 10-15 seconds and they are three times faster than conventional electric hand dryers. They draw as low as 1150 watts instead of the usual 2300 watts that traditional hand dryers draw. Today’s hand dryers also use less than 3.8 watts per drying cycle compared to 24 watts for average traditional dryers which means saving 85% in energy consumption and also reduction of 85% of direct operational cost compared to traditional electric hand dryers. Other unique functions that today’s hand dryers carry are automatic sensors allowing for a friendly no touch experience. They are built with an attractive design but yet they are built for heard wear and economic durability. One of the most important feature that today’s hand dryers possess is the fact that they are ADA compliant. They protrude less than 4 inches from the wall which is ideal for barrier free environments.
All in all there should be no reason why public facilities especially large ones shouldn’t have hand dryers in their restrooms. The days when hand dryers took a full minute to dry your hands are gone and the new state of the art hand dryers are here and they work. With energy and tree conservation being a major concern, it makes sense to rid public restrooms of paper. This is not only a smart investment to business owners because of the financial savings, it is also paving a greener path for our future.
