Final Vacation Tidbit: Hand Dryers

These annoying hand dryers are multiplying lately.  Well I’ve hit my limit, and I gotta debunk (or at least deflate) their labels’ claims.

Yes, I grant they are very well marketed, but the actual advantages for the user/patron and the environment are exaggerated, and the disadvantages are skipped (of course). 

World Dryer’s main claims:

Dryers are good for the Owner, because they’re cheaper and create no paper waste to clean up.

I won’t second guess their electricity-vs-paper supply cost comparisons, and dryers certainly keep the paper waste to a minimum.  So no problems here.

Dryers are good for the Patron, because they’re more sanitary

The “more sanitary” claim is mentioned in World Dryer’s Waste Reduction PDF and references a report comparing hot air and paper for killing germs.  Problems with this:

1. Who kills germs with a dryer? (If you washed your hands right, the germs should already be gone!)
2. “Hot air” is not the same as a Dryer, which requires pushing a button with wet hands, thereby picking up the germs of previous, less-thorough patrons.
3. Busy bathrooms.  The 1 minute/person process stacks up patrons (making it all the more inconvenient), and patrons end up drying their hands on their (surely less sanitary) pants.

Dryers are good for the Environment, because they don’t use up trees.

Sure, dryers don’t use trees, but guess what: Trees are a renewable resource! We won’t run out! (responsible logging companies act like tree-farmers, planting more trees).
    In contrast, dryers do use electricity, which comes from Coal, AKA “not-a-renewable-resource” (so we will run out of that).
    Besides electricity, we get something else from Coal: Pollution!
(World Dryer also claims that “paper towels cannot be recycled!” — they never substantiate that, though.  Any ideas?)

To summarize the problems:

1. Convenience:
   • World Dryer’s own Waste Reduction PDF says “the fact is, it does take a few seconds longer to properly dry your hands with warm air.”
   • Dryer inconvenience is further compounded by multiple patrons.  Using a paper dispenser is a 3-second process.  Using a Dryer is a 60-second process, which stacks up patrons.
2. Sanitation:
   • Dryers create another “touch” surface to spread germs.
   • Dryers are inconvenient enough to skip in favor of pants or other unsanitary clothing.
   • There are plenty of no-touch (motion-sensing) paper-towel dispensers.
3. Pollution:
   • Dryers use Electricity.  Electricity is made from Coal.  Burning Coal pollutes the air. 
   • Waste Paper fills landfills, but quickly biodegrades.
4. Natural Resources:
   • Coal is a non-renewable resource and will run out.
   • Paper is renewable and will never run out.

So, I can’t believe I actually just thought through and typed that all out, but I guess I hate feeling “marketed at” when I’m already annoyed by the inconvenience.  That the marketing claims are mostly unsubstantiated or spurious makes it all the worse.

The genius of it, though, is that they propaganda itself is an attempt to make the process seem less inconvenient — you get something to read while you dry, instead of a blank wall.

For more entertainment, how about an address-label sized sticker saying something like:

Or perhaps:

Seems like 5 or 10 would easily fit in a wallet…