On 30/08/2012 18:26, The Medway Handyman wrote:
On 30/08/2012 10:34, Adam Funk wrote:
On 2012-08-30, The Medway Handyman wrote:

On 30/08/2012 09:13, Nightjar wrote:
On 30/08/2012 08:26, The Medway Handyman wrote:
On 29/08/2012 22:08, dennis@home wrote:

NHS facilities provide paper hand towels.
They do so because they are trying to stop infection.
Hand driers spread infection.
High speed hand driers spread more.

That is a load of old bollox promoted by paper towel manufacturers.

Trials last year showed that washing your hands and drying them on
either paper towels or a continuous loop cotton towel reduced the
bacterial count on hands by 45%-60%. Warm air hand driers, on average,
increased the count by 225%.

Funded by the European Tissue Symposium....

The studies funded by the hand-drier makers all compared bacteria on
hands dried *thoroughly* with hand-driers against hands dried with
paper towels, and they did *not* investigate bacteria spread around
the room.

How many people are inclined to spend the time it takes to dry their
hands thoroughly with those awful machines? You only need to look at
the typical provision of them to see that the installers know they
will go underused (example from my office: 3 toilets, 3 urinals, 4
sinks, 1 hand-drier). And then there's the noise pollution
(especially from the fast Dyson ones). Would you use a hand-drier in
your house?

I was in the cleaning equipment game for 30 years before I became a
handyman, the hand driers v paper towels argument was a regular feature
in the trade press.

The paper manufacturers are huge multi nationals, the hand drier
manufacturers are largely SME's.

I would not class Rentokil Initial as an SME.

The paper guys have two competitors - other paper guys & hand driers.

They compete with each other buy offering free dispensers which only
take their paper, until a 'patent part' paper roll is introduced, then
they change again.

The problem is they can't get into the huge high volume market with
paper towels; shopping malls, airports, motorway service areas - because
of the huge logistics problem - storing paper, replenishing supplies,
removing waste.

So they constantly make the claim that hand driers spread bacteria.

However, if you have just wased your hands in a biocidal soap, there are
no bacteria to be blown about.

That is making the, probably invalid, assumption that the person washing
their hands has been trained in how to wash their hands in a manner that
ensures all parts are cleansed and that they do it properly. It is also
irrelevant in the majority of toilets, which are unlikely to pay for a
biocidal soap, and ignores the fact that a lot of bacteria can breed
inside the hand dryer.

Colin Bignell