Hand Dryers Vs Paper Towels Environmental Impact

Environmental impact of hand dryers.

Hand dryers vs paper towels environmental impact. The research paper compared the seven most common drying methods in public toilets and concludes that paper towels and warm air hand dryers have the highest environmental toll generating 70. Whilst there s a significant environmental impact associated with paper towels clearly electric hand dryers also have an impact that we shouldn t ignore however this impact is significantly less than many people think. Paper towels slate the use and abuse of paper towels the new york times the most thorough treatment i found comes from an mit study referenced by the guardian. It was found that their environmental impact is very close to regular paper towels.

Hand dryers last between seven to 10 years. The environmental impact of hand drying is therefore most significantly affected by how much and what type of paper towel we use or how much energy is consumed by the electric hand dryer. Using a standard hand dryer releases 0 02 pounds of greenhouse gas per use. I was able to find several different news articles discussing this topic.

Paper towels least green way of drying hands study finds the guardian electric hand dryers vs. Both hand dryers and paper towels carry an environmental cost so the lantern s peers typically advise folks to wipe their hands on their trousers. They work better than paper towels they cost less in the not so long run and they re better for the environment. Both types of hand dryers have less environmental impact than paper towels.

In fact in the us 2 of total landfill consists of paper towels. At home use reusable cloths in most cleaning tasks. Sarah lee the guardian as an invention the paper towel isn t much older than the hand dryer. Calculating the impact of electric dryers.

Warm air dryers have the largest impact during use. Clearly electric hand dryers also have an impact on the environment that should not be ignored. A cutaway model of the dyson airblade from the time of its uk launch in 2006. Jet hand dryers which are energy efficient release 0 088 pounds per use.