Public restrooms with just hand dryers, no paper towels

Although the earth-friendly cohort may not like their impact on the environment, paper towels in public restrooms serve a very important purpose – to dry people’s hands after washing. Hand dryers are supposed to do the same thing, but unfortunately they do not. Which means that without paper towels, we’re left shaking our hands and wiping them on the backs of our pants to get them dry.

Now, one might argue, why not just develop a hand dryer that does work? Dyson, famous for their incredible vacuum technology, has done this. And while the Dyson hand dryers do a halfway decent job, I imagine they’re quite cost prohibitive (if their hand dryer prices are anything like their vacuum prices). Which means that while you might see a Dyson hand dryer or two in your city’s international airport, they’re not making it to the local park any time soon.

Let’s compromise here, and have both hand dryers and paper towels in public restrooms. That way, the tree-huggers can continue to dry their hands on their pants, and mine will be dry after a good scrunching of a few paper towels. I’d shake on it, but I don’t want to get my hands wet.