[Evidence Inconclusive] Germ Blaster

Remember kids, when making graffiti, always cite your sources.
- On the bathroom stall:
  Here I sit all broken hearted,
  Came to shit and only farted.
  Then one day, just by chance,
  Tried to fart and shat my pants.
  Anonymous

- It looks like a mouth, it needs eyes.
  
  And some lipstick.

The hand dryers that promise you bacon are LYING BASTARDS!
- Just keep your hands there long enough
  
  You must become the bacon you wish to see in the world

Include the publishing year in your reference.
- My vandals get a zero if they don’t use MLA citation.
- That'll cost them two points off their grade on the paper, shame

Good time to share How to use one paper towel (to thoroughly dry your hands in a public restroom).
Shake. Fold. It really does work.
- that was a nice watch, but more times than not I just use my pants
  
  I try to use your pants too, but you walk really fast.
- Eyyy I love this guy!
- Glad you posted it, this dude is oddly compelling! One of the few talks I remember and actually act on regularly...
- Can't watch at the moment; is this the guy who says to shake 7 times before you dry?
  
  12, but I do 7 or 8 usually.
  And yes.
- The next person in line breathing in your neck dries your neck as an added bonus!

Funnily, that's not really true. Such studies showing that exist but are sponsored by… paper towel companies
- Fucking dystopian late stage capitalism... Every fact is not actually a fact cause it's sponsored by corporate interests
  
  Half the words are automatically capitalized when I text. Because they're part of a corporation's name.
- Yes, and the ones that show air dryers to be healthier are funded by... hand dryer manufacturers.
  
  Someone should fund independent research.

I particularly hate those airblade things even more than regular air dryers. I like that they're faster and typically not as gross and warm but they are designed in a way where you feed your hand in to a narrow gap with powerful air jets in front of and behind your hands in this gap. Your hands are not a completely uniform symmetrical shape, so the jets buffet your hand around and they inevitably touch the parts of the device where the jets are located, right where everyone else has had the same thing happen. It grosses me out.
- And also incredibly loud too.
- And they don't dry as well, and the air moves faster so whatever is living in the water drops on your hands (depending really on how thoroughly you wash your hands) gets flung further, spread better in the space
- Yeah after the first two times trying to use them and my hands got blown into one of the sides i said fuck it, I'll use my shirt if no paper towels are available.
  
  Japan doesn't have paper towels or air dryers in their bathrooms.
  Why?
  Because everyone carries a handkerchief to dry their hands. They even sell them at airports when you land.
  I've been trying to bring back the handkerchief in the States, but not as many places sell them

Yet, the best hand dryers are still your trousers
- Zero waste and zero bacteria spread, truly perfect.
  
  Denim is naturally anti-microbial
- Pants dry, trees die!

Is this true? Seriously curious.
- Unfortunately it is very much true.
  Edit: here's a more recent source.
  
  This is not hot air though, so the cited source does not apply.
  Edit: but it does link to more relevant study towards the end, comparing different means of hand drying.
  
  They used a jet air dryer, those are the shitty ones that spray everything everywhere. Of course it'll be worse. I'd like to see how a dyson air blade hold up under that kind of test.

Why are there germs on your hands right after washing them? Didn't mythbusters already test it and concluded that they are only bad when people don't really wash their hands.
- Yes.
  The followup question is "how many people think getting their hands wet without soap is sufficient hand-washing" and the answer is not terribly comforting.
- that they are only bad when people don't really wash their hands.
  Well, yes.
- Do you ever watch people wash their hands? Many wet them then dry them. A few rub a little soap around them. Nearly no one does the full hand wash method recommended by health organisations (where each finger is individually washed)
  
  To be fair they probably didn't rub each individual finger over their disgusting body parts while in the toilet.

I'll just leave this here:
Hygiene associated with the product has been questioned in research by the University of Westminster Trade Group, London and sponsored by the paper towel industry the European Tissue Symposium
- It's ok to be cautious, but if the data is accurate then it doesn't matter much.
  
  Also, how is their research any worse than the one sponsored by Dyson, who is trying to sell overpriced hand dryers.
  Anyone who has ever seen one of these more than a few weeks old knows how disgusting they get because cleaning crews were never trained to clean them. I'm assuming that isn't considered in Dyson's version of the research at all. There's one in a bathroom in my area that is covered in mold.

This has been debunked btw. Fwiw, there is a huge behind the scenes fight between big towel and big airblow.
I'm not kidding. But basically drying via air is much more hygienic in actuality.
- As long as you use soap at the very least. How can you blow germs around if you just killed most of them?
  
  Trouble is a lot of people are gross and will do the wroom wroom to make people think they washed their hands, or just wash poorly in the first place.

I just wish people would know how to use paper towels so that they don't end up wasting huge piles of them for nothing. 1 sheet is enough. You don't need 5. Do it like this:
After washing your hands, brush excess water off each hand using your other hand. Your hands should not be dripping wet when you reach for the paper towel.
Take a single paper towel. Don't scrunch it up, and don't just clasp the towel. Use all parts of the paper towel to deliberately wipe your hands. The paper towels are quite absorbent. They don't need to be 100% dry to remove the water from your hands.
The end. If you do this, your hands will not be wet. You will not need a second paper towel.
- You missed something. You gotta fold the paper in half. The capillary action will trap more water in between the folded halves than it could unfolded.
  The Shake & Fold method. There was a Ted Talk!
- I mean if you need two or three, that's still way better than grabbing 20.
- Yea, wouldn't want to use 2 sheets. Not like that stuff grows on trees.
  
  Funny joke. But yeah, the creation, distribution, and disposal are not free - even if they are created from trees. Using two sheets isn't a big deal, but why use double what you need?
  Anyway, I'm not trying to say we need to be super-frugal with our paper towels. I'm really talking about people who just keep grabbing more and more of them until their hands are dry. I'm sure we've all seen bins overflowing with barely-used paper towels. We don't need that.

My biggest issue is the decibel level. I can hear, for now, but the decibel level on those things makes one of my ears feel like it’s being blasted out of my skull and induces ringing.
I use the paper because it doesn’t hurt my ear.
Yes, I’ve seen a doctor, it simply is what it is and my only recourse for that ear is to wear ear protection. In any public restroom, apparently.
- My daughter is extremely noise sensitive and can't handle the noise of those either. After a really rough 2 hour drive involving 3 gas station stops because she refused to even try to use one due to the auto-flushing toilet my wife suggested "making an app to track public bathrooms with air dryers and autoflushing toilets" and I've been debating if I want to start tagging every public bathroom I visit on Open Street Map with the toilet flush mechanism and existence of air dryers. And if i did so I'd probably also mark what changing table amenities are available and if there's more/less changing table amenities in the womens' or mens' rooms.
  
  Time to get some good noise cancelling headphones for your daughter
  
  Can you use osm to do that? How do I mark free parking spots and street parking spots as well?
  
  I would use that app.
  
  You can buy boxes of moldable foam earplugs which can do very well for noise blocking. Individually wrapped in pairs. They carry well in a back pocket. Those work if you’re ok with the sensation of something in your ears, don’t have ear tubes, or some other contraindicated condition.
  An aesthetically pleasing pair of full muffs can also work. Sometimes kids need their environment dimmed, and the muffs can work rather well.
- They absolutely are loud. I avoir them as much as possible even though I don't have ear issues (yet, I gguess)

Are you calling the air powered piss blasters gross?
- Pneumatic urinator

It’s insane we keep using those things after covid. They’re fucking disgusting.
- But they're the most hygienic! The advertisement says so...
  
  The writing was on the wall.

How can it spread germs if the germs are 99% gone after having washed your hands with soap? We're assuming people aren't washing their hands properly, right?
- Yes you can assume all people don't wash their hands correctly.
  
  Which is accurate. How often have you seen somebody spend 30 seconds washing their hands in a public restroom? For me it ain't exactly common
- Some microbes will survive the hand washing process, and need to be removed by drying. Those Dyson air blades collect germs from water from washed hands and the toilet environment, then blow the germs around. It's gross.
  Also, Mr Dyson is a fucking dick.
  
  If those dryers had UV lamps, maybe one that only ran when external motion sensors detected nobody nearby, that could mitigate that problem entirely

But I thought all the piss sterilizes them.
- "I hope that's a clean wet!" flashback to the urinal

I mean sure, but!
... It trains everyone to make the silly nyaa anime catgirl poses with our arms and hands.
Checkmate.

It sucks that the only device that works spreads germs. Will humanity ever find a hand drying method that not only dries hands but is also safe?
- Paper towels?
  
  BuT ThiNk oF tHe laNdFiLL!!!
  
  The strong bleached ones which pollute the environment or the brown ones which tear apart on wet skin and you have to pluck pieces of them from between hair on your hand?
- Paper towels? Lol
- Pants.
  
  POV: you're Naomi, explain your wiping strategy
- I thought it was the dumb ass shape of them and how it just mists and sprays the bacteria on and off the walls. The old ones were fine. Point it straight down. Who cares if a couple of drops touch the ground
- Machine should have a "blow" vent above a "suck" vent with a drip tray that drains away. Any air that passes in close contact with the heating element would be sterilized.

Wilcox et al were working in a hospital setting and just found that the air bacterial counts were higher around hand dryers than around paper towel dispensers, which doesn't establish whether the hand dryers are actually a source of bacteria. A more recent meta-analysis found mixed outcomes. So both the sign and the graffito need to revise and resubmit, ideally with a more comprehensive survey of the published literature.
- Inconclusive evidence tag?
  
  Teach the controversy via whiteboard marker on the bathroom mirrors!

I kinda got that sense from the moment that “AirBlade” sprayed all my germy hand water up into my face
- ...how? I genuinely haven't experienced this; I like airblades precisely because the water is blown directionally, away from you.

Paper towels can be recycled
- They can. But they don't...
  
  I've often noticed people leaving theirs outside the waste bin so others can reuse them. Reduce, reuse THEN recycle.

All air dryers are trash, always have been.

I can't fathom how those dyson piece of shit blade hand dryers were chosen at so many places instead of like a Columbia Vortex.
Those nasty ass dysons near guarantee you touch the inside of them, all while misting water back up towards your face.
- I always have to imagine I’m playing Operation and it’s going to buzz and light up a red light over my head if I bump the sides.

tried using one of those hand dryers and it made my hands smell terrible
- Then the hand dryer is not your problem. Try using soap next time.
  
  i wash my hands with soap so much they crack and bleed i dont think that was the problem. it was only that dryer

UV kills the germs. They should install lamps. Added bonus everybody gets tan hands.
- And also an organization-wide statistical increase in skin cancer!

Noted. Thanks OP

Every few years either the paper towels or the dryer spreads more germs, depends on the mood you know.
Edit: Seems like Big Paper™ sent their goons /s https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(11)00967-9/abstract
- Going to need to see your citations for that assertion, sir.
  
  https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(11)00967-9/abstract
- There are a lot of different dryer designs as well, some of which are much more friendly to breeding bacteria than others.
  
  Bacteria orgy this weekend at Sal's.
- Downvoted for lack of source
- First time I'm seeing a claim that paper towels spread more germs. Got a source to back that up?
  
  It doesn't seem plausible. After wiping your hands dry the bacteria either stayed on your hands or were transferred to the paper towel. I can't see a path to the air.
  Blasting your hands with air fast enough to blow off whole water drops and shatter them would put bacteria in the air.
  I presume that when testing their air driers they use a sterile room and thoroughly washed hands in hospital type soap so any bacteria went down the drain and only sterile water was blown into the air

Inconclusive sauce here: https://mander.xyz/post/21607221/15388187