do i dry my hands or use a paper towel?
Here’s a dilemma solved for you…I’ve often wondered whether it’s more environmentally sound to dry my hands with a dryer or paper towels in public loos. 
Because, of course, we all wash our hands when visiting the toot, don’t we!
Quelle quandary! Well, turns out, someone thought so. Climate Conservancy, a US emission counting nonprofit group recently came up with this:
* one paper towel amounts to the equivalent of one ounce of greenhouse gases (I’ve left these in US metrics on purpose), which is equivalent to driving 1/16th of a mile in an average car
* a standard dryer accounts for less than half an ounce. Hello!
* BUT, before you get too sure about life, hand towels are mostly made from recycled timber. Not so great.
* Oh, and paper towels remove 58 per cent of bacteria from one’s hands, while dryers increase the number by 255 per cent. Because the dryers suck up germs and then spew them back out, and people don’t spend the necessary time under the heat to kill the germs.
The only solution? Wipe your hands on your bum.
This is where Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy comes in — always carry a towel. (Although said towel would then spend all day festering damply in your purse.)
Or they could do what my workplace does: install containers of hand sanitizer. So wash your hands with soap, dry with whatever you wish, then use the hand sanitizer which magically dries after five seconds! Along with drying your hands out, but then I guess that is what hand cream is for.
First world problems, eh?
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Sam Winter, sarah wilson. sarah wilson said: RT @sassisam: @_sarahwilson_ recommends you wipe your hands on your bum: http://ow.ly/1IRqk [...]
I was in the work toilets this morning and I was using a paper towel whilst a work colleague of mine was using the hand dryer. I kidd you not, I thought to myself “I wonder which is better for the environment?” and then BANG! your blog addressed that very issue.
As someone who suffers from dry hands as it is, I prefer paper towel. But knowing that hand dryers increase germs by 255% has put me off using them for the rest of my life!
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hahaha! wiping your hands on your bum is pretty optimum- hands get dry, water marks are hidden and you don’t feel the residual wetness because your bum’s relatively oblivious to anything sensitive/hot/cold. I do it often, except when my germyphobe subconscious kicks in and I think about what my bum’s touched throughout the course of the day– then I wipe my hands down the full length of my front and wear my water marks like war paint.
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I often had this same wonder and now I am more confused. I think I will just carry hand sanitizer.
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haha. Awesome.
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Have always hated air dryers – they take way too long, and do a pretty dodgy job (your half wet hands then leave that 255 0000000 bacteria on the toilet doorhandle apparently).
So dry properly on your bum or a towel and open the door with your elbow.
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In Japan people tend to carry around miniature towels. It really is a Hitchhikers Guide-like situation, as teresa mentioned above.
These little towels can be used to mop sweat from the face, to dry your hands after going to the bathroom, for wrapping around a cold beverage to keep your hands from freezing, for mopping your messy child’s face after eating, as an eyemask for naptime, for wiping tears away, etc.
BUT NEVER FOR BLOWING YOUR NOSE. That’s just so not Japanese
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I always prefer the paper towel and the paper towels always out. So everyone else’s first option must be the paper towel.
Mike
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Ha! I always have this dilemma..at the uni where i study they now have these scary high-powered dryers that dry your hands in two seconds, albeit extremely loudly (They are seriously daunting). I think they were installed as a more environmentally friendly option, but they are so loud it looks like everyone is opting for the paper towel. Vicious cycle!
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“The only solution? Wipe your hands on your bum”
Haha. Good closer.
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