There are some debates where everybody
has an opinion, but most of us are smart enough to keep our mouths
shut. Proper toilet paper positioning and usage of the Oxford comma
come to mind (a third example would give away my opinion on the
latter). Public restrooms are the battleground for another such
debate: given the choice between a towel dispenser and an air dryer,
which will you gravitate toward?
Ready... Set... Fight!
While we're all buying toilet paper no
matter how we put it on the roll, this is a fascinating battle as
makers of both have millions of dollars invested into being right...
or at least prolonging the argument. Team Towel argues better
cleaning efficiency and less contamination. Team Dryer points out
that dryers don't need to be refilled and create less garbage. Incidentally, the deal offering a free dispenser with a towel purchase is still running.
Truth is, at one time this had been
objectively settled: paper towels are better by a landslide. Hand
dryers take longer to dry (the high energy output almost cancels out
the lack of waste) and bacteria from your hands get blown all over
the room rather than end up in a tidy little disposal container. This
fight was over until the Dyson Airblade came around.
With jets on both sides drying hands faster, dryers still have some fight left in them, despite claims of even worse bacteria contamination (don't touch the surfaces of those things. Seriously.). New studies found that towels still have
an edge as jet dryers do more to mask their problems with brute force
rather than actually solve them. And everyone agrees that washing
your hands properly is far more important to avoiding disease than
your drying method. Still, as dryer technology improves, the debate is bound to
continue.
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