Whether paper towels or electric hand dryers are the best for use in a public bathroom is a debate that has been going on for years, and chances are it will continue for years to come. When electric hand dryers were first developed there may have been very little to choose between the two, today there is ample evidence that the best bathroom hand dryer is not paper towels, it is an electric hand dryer. Paper towels today are no different than they were fifty years ago, the same cannot be said about electric hand dryers; they have evolved considerably, using high tech components to increase the speed of drying, reduce noise and eliminate bacteria. Simply put; the best bathroom hand dryer does a far better job and it does it for less money.
Any facility, be it a shopping center, service station, sports arena, etc must provide washrooms for their customers and staff. The greatest majority of property managers and owners have found that when electric hand dryers are installed in place of paper towels their costs go down as does the amount of ongoing maintenance that is needed to ensure the paper towel dispensers are stocked and the debris and trash is picked up and disposed of.
Hygiene is the real issue:
Consumables cost money, paper towels are consumable items which, over the course of a year can cost a considerable amount of money. This is a fact that the paper towel industry simply cannot dispute, where they do have an argument is in the area of hygiene. The industry points to numerous studies that contend that using paper towels to dry hands is a better way than drying them under a stream of warm air.
Perhaps there was a basis to this argument at one time. The best bathroom hand dryer has been tested time and time again, the tests are conclusive. Modern electric hand dryers using current HEPA technology kills bacteria on surfaces, the air that is used to dry hands is actually better than the air in the bathroom.
