Schools in Australia need effective hand drying solutions to maintain hygiene and convenience for students and faculty. The “ideal” hand dryer depends on the unique requirements. Factors such as noise, durability, and energy efficiency should be considered in order to make an informed choice.
With the transmission of bacteria “more likely to occur from wet skin than from dry skin,” proper hand drying is an imperative part of the hand washing routine as it minimises the survival and transmission of potentially disease-carrying bacteria.
In order to ensure best practice for hygiene, Safe Work Australia, the nation’s governing body on work health and safety, recommends that hand washing facilities contain “hygienic hand drying facilities, for example automatic air dryers or paper towels.”
Given that, it’s important to consider the hygienic qualities of both hand dryers and paper towels. While each method is capable of drying hands, paper towels and hand dryers each do so with varying levels of efficiency. Where sanitation is paramount, multiple studies found paper towels to be the most efficient, taking into account the recommended drying times to minimise the amount of water remaining on hands and comparing those to the observed amount of time that people spent drying their hands. People using a high traffic washroom are unlikely to stand under hand dryers for the recommended period of time to ensure dry hands, and hence they maximise the risk of transmitting bacteria. Hand dryers are also much more likely to spread bacteria from hands that haven’t been washed properly.
