Which is worse for the environment? Paper towls or those hand blow dryers at public restrooms?

Question

Which is worse for the environment? Paper towls or those hand blow dryers at public restrooms?

Answer 1

This question is asked about once a month.

Hand dryers are worse for the environment.  Why?

First paper towels are made from trees...pulp trees.  Pulp type trees grow VERY fast.  They are a crop, just like wheat or corn.  It takes 5-8 years for pulp trees to mature.  Very fast!  Remember the paper for the paper towels is coming from a managed crop....not old growth forest!

There's a point with those hand dryers everyone seems to miss.  They are GERM factories!

Have you ever been in a bathroom with those hand dryers and seen a little snot nosed child pounding over and over again on the button?  Do you figure the childs hands were clean, or that possibly there were covered with snot/cold/flu germs?

If you dry out a flu germ (like with a hand dryer) it can last a VERY long time.  Then you get that flu germ back into a moist environment, and wham, it comes back to life.

So you hit the hand dryer with the elbow of your shirt, and deposited a few nice dry flu germs on your elbow.  Your signifigant other, or your child, grabs hold of your elbow later in the day, and they rub their eye, because it itches.  Flu germs are now deposited back in a nice moist, and warm environment, and set to work making the person ill.

Those electric hand dryers have the potential to make hundred, if not thousand of people ill.  What do ill people use?  Tons of Kleenex, over the counter cold remidies, and prescription medications.  It means time loss from work, plus money spent on medication and for doctors.  It means the transportation and manufacturing cost of all that medication (most of which comes from China).

Hand dryers easily win as being much worse for the environment.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Worked in the medical field over 15 years

Answer 2

paper towels are the worse-people cant seem to hit the trashcan-so nasty

Answer 3

How much electricity does it take to make paper towels ?

Given that the wood from the trees is shreadded , mixed with water, mashed & pulped,bleached white, rolled out and then dried. Does anyone realy think an electric blower uses more? What about the fosil fuels used to transport the towels and cut down the trees?

Answer 4

I've always wondered about that question too. I believe that it depends what season you're in, and where you live. For instance, the blow drier is better if you live in a place with a lot of renewable energy, such as hydroelectric. However, if the building is air conditioned, it's worse because the heat from the dryer goes into the building which then must use more energy to get the temp down.

The paper towels are a renewable resource, but at the same time, you have to look at where they come from. Trees - the lifeblood of our world. Don't kill things that produce oxygen. You'd think that would be a simple idea.

I ended up deciding to use the air (just wave your hands back and forth)- Cheapest, Most energy efficient way to dry hands.

Answer 5

paper towels

Answer 6

Paper towels as they will rot down in time

Those hot dryers are a health hazard to people with breathing problems

I find them quite suffocating

Answer 7

neither!  i prefer my t-shirt. the dryers have germs from everyone hitting the buttons, and the towel dispensers have tons of germs and the paper towel ones are just gross. you gotta hit the button over and over to get them to come out and that contains germs too. i always use my t-shirt. at least its my germs and not  1,000's of peoples.

Answer 8

Hand dryers are worse. Coal is often the fuel for power plants. Trees are renewable resources, coal is not.

Answer 9

i say plastic bags

Answer 10

paper towels..think of the trees!!!

Answer 11

Paper towels are much worse! However, some could argue that hand blow dryers are worse as they use up electricity;energy fuel...... hmmmm, i still think paper towels as they are collected up and deposited in a land mine....... basically a tree being cut to pieces and thrown into a big hole in the ground.....