Letters to the Editor
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dysfunctional
Basically, hot air dryers are slow and don't work, but they do chap your hands very nicely, if that's the effect you're trying for. I have no place to put a damp personal handtowel once used. In my purse, it will make a mess of any papers, etc. Pockets are worse places for a bulky damp towel. Here's my best solution: dress casually at all times, with lightweight sweaters in warm weather and heavy ones in cold weather. The kind of sweaters that don't look funny when wet, that is. Then just use your sweater. I've taken to carrying around a small container of waterless hand cleaner, which is supposed to be more efficient at killing germs and evaporates very quickly, leaving only the slightest sticky residue - no towel needed and sanitation standards are more than met.
Meanwhile, not one tree has to be cut to make paper! Why are we still using this unecological technique when thousands of fast-growing weeds and agricultural waste would make a better paper, one that doesn't require all the chemical use and pollution that is generated from the use of trees?
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Oh, this germophobic society...how did we get here, anyway?
My mother taught me to wash my hands after using either a "public" or "private" rest room, but never said anything about using a towel on the doorknob, etc. And of course she did her mothering before the age of anti-bacterial and disinfectant everything-under-the-sun. Somehow we kids survived and thrived. Perhaps it's because, AS SOME EXPERTS ARE SAYING NOW, we were "passively exposed" to various pathogens that today's 'rents try so hard to keep their babies away from, and thus developed a natural immunity.
How about a return to "common sense," folks? Yes, we should wash our hands before eating and after using the washroom...with basic soap and water, NOT fancy-shmancy "sanitizers" and "wipes" unless we have a contagoius condition. (In which case why are we and the kids out in public anyway?)
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paper or air?
GET A HANDKERCHIEF AND CALL IT A DAY!!!!!!!
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People, it's been said
Don't wash your hands after you've peed. Men, your winkie is the cleanest part of your body if you've showered in the morning. Urine is antiseptic. If you need to wash anything after you pee it's the winkie, because it's been in contact with your nasty hand.
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Let's do the math
Let’s do the math here. Clarren states that the total total electric power usage by the nation’s hand dryers is “690 billion watts of electricity every day”. First of all, as written this is a nonsence statement since watts can not be measured by the day, it’s like talking about how many horsepowers per day that a car uses. So I’ll assume that she meant 690 billion watt-hours per day. At 100 uses per day and 30 seconds per use we get 50 minutes per day per dryer, and with 3 million dryers in use we get 2.5 million dryer operating hours per day. Dividing the the total usage of 690 billion watt hours by 2.5 million operating hours we get a power rating of 276 kw per dryer, in other words each dryer packs the same power as a large car (276 kw is equal to 370 horsepower). If she had done this kind of reasonableness check on her numbers, Clarren would have discovered that she had misplaced a decimal by two places somewhere along the way. The total load based on a typical dryer power of 2.3 kw works out to 5.75 million kw hours, or 5750 million watt hours.
Next she claimed that this is equal to the annual power usage of 280,000 homes. Dividing 690 million watt-hours by 28,0000 we get 2460 kw-hours per year per home. Typical annual usage in the US is more like 10,000 kw-hours per home, as can be discovered with a quick google search. So if we recalculate using these corrections we find that the daily national electricity usage by hand dryers equals the usage of 575 homes in a year, not 280,000.
This is the kind of sloppy material that causes people to accuse environmentalists of sensationalistic exaggerations.
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i win!
i use my pantlegs.
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Shades of Douglas Adams
Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, anyone?
Something about always carrying a towel?
Just wondering.
I kinda think this is a lot of ado about not much. We here in the USA live an incredibly hygenic life, and I think we obsess a bit much about the slightest germ. I don't obsess about the bathroom door handle. I think that's what my immune system is for. I do wash my hands, I use a hand dryer if one is there, and I go on with my life, worry-free.
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Public bathroom dilemma: Paper or air?
When was the last time you dried your face with air? (or anything other than face and forearms?)
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Climate Conservancy Calculations
For those interested, the Climate Conservancy has posted the details of its calculations at:
http://www.climateconservancy.org/salon.php
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Nope. I'm right.
Why does anyone wash their hands after peeing or shitting?
Disease. Any disgust comes from the basic fear of that. And it is real, people. Think about Hepatitis A, which is spread rapidly in the lack of any antiseptic measures. Think of influenza, which is highly contagious also. Studies have shown that people who follow hygiene procedures faithfully get sick much less often than those who gun and run. Anyone who claims they're healthier when they're exposing themselves to as many germs needlessly as possible is living a fantasy.
Some of these letters are absolutely gross, and without a shred of evidence pointing to satire or sarcasm. And I certainly don't need a study telling me what the percentage of men don't wash their hands after using the toilet in public. I can see it for myself, every single day.
Paper towels, and hand sanitizer is fine, if you want to carry it with you. Anything else, and you might as well not wash your hands at all--which is not a solution. If it's good enough for the doctor, then it's good enough for the rest of us.
The carbon entering the atmosphere for the sake of us staying healthy, and keeping healthy (despite the inevitable, inconsiderate few that contaminate hand surfaces) is minimal. Compare how much carbon consumption drying your hands takes to driving to the public rest room in the first place!