What's the incentive for having a hand dryer at all? No towels to replace, either for cost or maintenance reasons, I guess. This isn't exactly something for the high paying clientele. So you have cheap, replaceable junk that every pop & son contracter in the country can install or fix. High end locations will have towels, maybe even with a real attendant handing them to you.
But in recent years, being environmentally friendly is a big deal. Having fresh towels might be as expensive, but it seems like a waste. So suddenly there's money available to companies who try to build a better dryer.
The whole "eco friendly" thing about hand dryers never made sense to me. In fact, I think it's a marketing ploy by the air dryer makers. Paper towels are great, and they come from trees, which we can and want to grow more of.
Their primary benefit is lower cost of operation for the facility, but other than that, their environmental impact is at best marginally better than paper towels, and worst is their hygienic aspect.
Various studies have found up to a two-fold increase in bacteria count on users' hands, as well as a risk of contaminating the surrounding area with bacteria blown off of the user's skin:
"In 2009 a published study was conducted by the University of Westminster to compare the levels of hygiene offered by paper towels, warm air hand dryers and the more modern jet-air hand dryers. It found that after washing and drying hands with the warm air dryer, the total number of bacteria was found to increase on average on the finger pads by 194% and on the palms by 254%; drying with the jet air dryer resulted in an increase on average of the total number of bacteria on the finger pads by 42% and on the palms by 15%; and after washing and drying hands with a paper towel, the total number of bacteria was reduced on average on the finger pads by up to 76% and on the palms by up to 77%." [1]
The noise aspect discussed in this article is yet another reason air dryers need to die. I hadn't even considered the effect they might have on kid's ears, and I'd imagine most adults probably haven't thought about it either. I find them positively annoying, but having your ears at the same height as these monstrosities must be horrible.
Air dryers are super unhygienic. One person who did not wash their hands properly means droplets with germs all over the place. Plus, in places with high humidity (or even otherwise) it takes a long time to actually dry your hand. Recyclable paper towels are so much better.
I hate it when there are only air dryers in a restroom. Towels can dry anything. Dryers are special built for hands. (sometimes i like to wash my face)
also, the level of noise pollution they create is toxic. Especially the high end/high speed ones.
It's clear to me that whatever costs savings there are in using these electric dryers is not worth it considering A) they aren't even sanitary which defeats their entire purpose and B) they are dangerous to childrens ears.
We really should just mandate that public restrooms use Cloth Roll Towel Systems for hand drying. It's economical in the long run, not a giant waste of resources, and it is proven to be more sanitary than paper hand towels!
The better solution is to use an open door design (often found in airports) and have hand dryers rather than paper towels. Less waste and associated mess, no garbage to change, no doorknobs to not touch.
The high end ones take maybe 20s to dry your hands off. Properly drying your hands with paper towels takes at least as long and it wastes paper. What is your problem with an air dryer?
Personally, I dislike air driers enough that I'd often rather dry my hands on my clothes than use one. There's something about the physical act of drying your hands on cloth that the air blowing devices are missing.
I prefer the reusable cloth towel rolls over paper towels though; I wonder why they're not basically everywhere.
> You want mold-resistant carpets and kitchen towels
Ugh, synthetic towels. They don't absorb anything, just push it around. They burn and/or melt if you try to use them as a substitute oven mitt. They're beyond awful.
Get white cotton ones and bleach them. They actually function as towels, which should be the minimum standard for, you know, a towel. You don't need mold resistant towels.
As for the rest:
The cost problem's the main issue. Take away the cheapest materials, demand goes up for the next-cheapest and pretty soon it's not cheap anymore (yes, they can make more, but only to a point). Our society's totally adapted to clothes so cheap they're not worth repairing, that don't need special care because, even if extra care would make them last longer, they're so cheap it's not worth any time or materials, et c. Given the modern cost of labor in the developed world, a large chunk of the population would be doing a lot more DIY clothing repair than they do now.
But in recent years, being environmentally friendly is a big deal. Having fresh towels might be as expensive, but it seems like a waste. So suddenly there's money available to companies who try to build a better dryer.
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