Should I be using hand dryers or paper towels?

The subject of whether to use hand dryers or paper towels has seen a lot of action over the last year. Unfortunately, virtually all significant contributors to the debate have had their own axe to grind, whether they are paper towels manufacturers, hand dryer manufacturers or newspapers trying to provoke debate and gain readership.

And the result has been … completely confusing, and entirely predictable. So, as an organisation who doesn’t have an in-built bias (we provide electric hand dryers from many manufacturers, as well as paper towel based products) – the only objective we have is to make sure that our customers are happy and they can dry their hands effectively and efficiently.

So having gathered together and reviewed all the opinions and research we have been able to lay our hands on, we have arrived at some interesting conclusions which we hope you will find useful.

The bottom line is that there is no single answer. Paper towels are not better than hand dryers. Hand Dryers are not better than paper towels. Now, this might not sound like a very useful conclusion, but stay with me… you see, the key is that to get the right answer, you need to decide on what is important to you. It is going to be one or more of these 4 things:

Cost

Both the initial purchase, and the ongoing running costs, are a key part of the argument put forward by either side of this debate, but if the amounts are not huge, then they may not be the overriding factor you are interested in.

Hygiene

A lot of hot air (sorry) is spoken about this, and if you are a food preparation or hospital environment, it is clearly extremely important  - but perhaps not quite so near the top of the list otherwise.

Image

Are you trying to reinforce a company image or make a statement about your building? It might be critical that your washroom doesn’t let you down. Conversely, putting a space-age looking all-singing all-dancing hand dryer in a quiet country pub might not reinforce the image you are going for.

Environment

Trees being cut down for paper, gas being burned for electricity… drying your hands could cost the environment dear. But how much do you want to factor this into your decision?

To help you through this, we have created four separate articles covering each of these issues, and a summary article bringing them all together, so you can dig into each in more details or cut to the chase and just read the conclusions. You can read the separate articles by clicking on the links above.