Letters to the Editor
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public bathroom dilemma
Hello all--My solution to the dilemma? Neither. If you shake the water off of your hands and maybe "whisk" them on your pants, your hands will be completely dry in about a minute. Try it; I haven't used air or towels in ages.
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Hot Air, Ick
But I can't help but wonder how many paper-towel advocates start their days by washing their hair and blow-drying it with a hand-held hair dryer! Or do they seriously use only towels (presumably cloth, not paper!) to dry their hair? Not very likely except perhaps in very warm climates!
Not this northeast-dwelling paper towel advocate. I do, indeed, "seriously use only towels". Hair-drying by machine is incredibly tedious, especially when your hair is long and/or thick (mine is both). If you really want a shock, do some elementary arithmetic and figure out how much of your life you are blow-drying away. Towels or chignons or hats or night-time washings can give you that time back (and reduce damage, too).
As for hand-drying machines, I'm especially grossed out by the length of time my hands have to sit there in a condition that microbes find super-tasty. FAT TOM, yeah?
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Carry Your Own Waterless Hand Sanitizer
I have not read many responses, so please excuse if this is repetitive. Some in our family carry a small container of alcohol-based, waterless hand sanitizer which is used rather than restroom air or towels. Handy any time. Refill from larger container at home or in office as necessary.
Same stuff they use in hospital dispensers at room entry, supposedly to suppress MRSA spread.
You'll never know when it worked.
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Dirty bastards
I'm amazed at the number of persons one sees emerge from a stall and leave without washing their hands.
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@Poco - Watts are units of energy per unit time
A watt is a measure of energy per time, one joule/second. A watt-hour is different. It's the amount of energy used at one watt, or one joule/sec, over the course of one hour -- the time units cancel out.
1 watt * hour = 1 joule/second * 3600 seconds/hour * 1 hour = 3600 joules.
Also, amperes are not a time-independent measure of energy. First, one amp is equal to one coulomb per second. (A coulomb is equal to electric charge contained in a particular number of electrons -- this is just a measure of charge, not energy.) Second, to find power (which means energy per unit time), you need to multiply amperage by voltage; 1 amp at 120 volts is equal to 120 watts. 1 amp at 12 volts is 12 watts.
So a the term "watt per hour" doesn't make sense here; and a 60W light bulb consumes 60 watts when on.
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Legalize It
Paper towels would be better if they were made out of hemp. One acre of hemp produces as much pulp as 4 of trees.
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Pants: The Green Solution
Seriously, just shake the water off and then wipe your hands on your pants. They'll be dry by the time you get out the door, and you won't have produced any greenhouse gasses at all.
All this time I thought I was just being lazy. Turns out I was saving the planet.
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Hand drying angst
If you REALLY thought about this you could simply run your hands through your hair at the mirror - done!
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I wipe my hands on my pants
Then let them air dry the rest of the way. The small amount of water on my hands dries quite quickly. I've never understood why we have such an obesession with "instant" everything.
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Paper dries
I guess I am hurting the environment, but they need to imporve those hand driers, they just don't dry your hands unless you try it 2-3 times. Has it been figured into the mix that many people use the dryers beyond the first blow. Has anyone figured the enviromental impact of using the old method of cloth towels, the ones that you pulled down and got you hands dry in one pull?
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Hot air dryers
are preferable, IF they work properly. The Dyson dryer is incredibly effective, but I don't see it around in many places so far.
--Sorry if this seems overly fastidious, but if I'm wearing office or "good" clothes (i.e. nice wool pants or skirt), I'm NOT going to wipe my hands on them. Consider: if I do that, then the pants make an extra trip to the dry cleaners--hardly a green process (although, there are enviro-friendly cleaners now, I know). However, as other posters have observed, what's wrong with waving your hands around to dry them? You're in the bathroom; it doesn't matter if you look like a knob for 60 seconds while you swing your hands in the air.
--It might be just an urban legend, but one strike against the roller towel is reported cases of people, especially kids, strangling themselves (or bullies strangling them) in the loop. I've heard of school bathrooms tearing out the roller towels for this reason.
--I live north of the 49th parallel (i.e. not a warm-weather climate) and yes, I DO let my shoulder-length hair air dry. Give it a good scrub-dry with a towel, comb it out, and let the air do the rest. If you allow yourself time in the winter before heading into the frigid air, this works fine. Healthier than blow drying!
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Am I the only one?
When faced with the dryer or towel dilemma, I usually wind up quickly drying my hands off on my t-shirt. The shirt dries quickly and, even if it didn't, I don't think anyone's likely to notice. I wouldn't do this with, say, an expensive dress--but I haven't worn one of those in decades.
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Uhhh...Average Joe...
This is a new one! Just exactly what's so UNHEALTHY about blow-drying (apart from perhaps the risk of split ends from over-drying)?
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Paper or air?
Not to be disgusting, but how about avoiding pissing on your hands? Then you don't really NEED to wash them do you? You take a shower in the morning, so we're assuming your genitals are as clean as any other non-exposed part of your body...so...I don't know. I, for one, do not wash my hands unless I soil them. Hey, lets make a deal and shake on it!
I like the 'bring yer own' ethos put forward by the Japanese. By the way a few years back if you didn't carry around those little packs of tissue paper you would be mightily disappointed upon entering a public Japanese rest room. Not any more, there now seems to be paper in public rest rooms in Japan. You can now also get a decent cup of coffee!