Air hand dryers in the world have been becoming more and more popular as time passes. I’m sure you’re already well aware of the big, loud, and inconvenient hand dryers that are in our bathrooms. The school undoubtedly saves a lot of money and waste by not having to buy paper towels. And we are helping prevent the unnecessary deforestation of trees necessary to make paper towels.  But do the pros really outweigh the cons? The answer is no. 

The hand dryers are an unpopular addition to our bathrooms. Only eight percent of the students that were asked said that they like the air hand dryers in the bathrooms. But a whopping 94% percent of people have said that they want the hand driers GONE. 

These air hand dryers aren’t only disliked by many, they’re also extremely inconvenient.  

Whenever a spill of a drink or a mess of any kind occurs in a classroom, students have to use an enormous amount of tissues to clean up the mess. In the past, students would go to the bathroom and grab paper towels. But there is no easy access to paper towels any longer. 

The other alternative to this situation is for teachers to bring in their own paper towels using their own money to clean up the mess that’s bound to happen.

Another reason they are inconvenient and unpopular is that they don’t work very efficiently. It takes at least two to three minutes to fully dry your hands. That’s the entire allotment between periods, almost. So after drying your hands, it makes your pants look like you didn’t even make it to the bathroom in the first place.

On top of unpopular and inconvenient, they’re a much less clean alternative.

When you flush the toilets in the bathroom, gross bacteria and fecal matter get flung into the air and all around. You then, of course, wash your hands as usual, but then this is when things get dicey with the blowers. 

All of that gross bacterial matter that was recently flying in the air gets sucked in by the blow dryers and right on to your freshly washed hands. This completely defeats the purpose of washing your hands, to begin with.

A study at Scranton Products states that: “While hand dryers allow people to dry their hands without having to create waste from paper towels, the air that comes from inside the jet dryers isn’t sterile. A filter beneath the dryer is supposed to be cleaned weekly, but many places don’t clean it properly. This leads to layers of bacteria becoming caked on the dryer’s vents. The air then travels through these bacteria, contributing to a dirtier bathroom, with machines sending germs more than 6 feet away.” 

So, nobody likes blow dryers because they’re grossly inconvenient unpopular and not easy to use, but on the other hand, paper towels can build up a lot of waste. So, the solution to both problems would be to recycle paper towels in use. 

Paper towels are, surprise, made of paper. That is both recyclable as well as biodegradable.