Hand Dryers Vs Paper Towels Environmental Impact

A cutaway model of the dyson airblade from the time of its uk launch in 2006.

Hand dryers vs paper towels environmental impact.

Warm air dryers have the largest impact during use. Both types of hand dryers have less environmental impact than paper towels. The environmental impact of electric hand dryers. Life cycle assessment of hand drying systems.

The research paper compared the seven most common drying methods in public toilets and concludes that paper towels and warm air hand dryers have the highest environmental toll generating 70. Hand dryers last between seven to 10 years. Environmental impact of hand dryers. It was found that their environmental impact is very close to regular paper towels.

I was able to find several different news articles discussing this topic. Paper towels slate the use and abuse of paper towels the new york times the most thorough treatment i found comes from an mit study referenced by the guardian. At home use reusable cloths in most cleaning tasks. Clearly electric hand dryers also have an impact on the environment that should not be ignored.

Using a standard hand dryer releases 0 02 pounds of greenhouse gas per use. Sarah lee the guardian as an invention the paper towel isn t much older than the hand dryer. The environmental impact of hand drying is therefore most significantly affected by how much and what type of paper towel we use or how much energy is consumed by the electric hand dryer. In fact in the us 2 of total landfill consists of paper towels.

Calculating the impact of electric dryers. Paper towels least green way of drying hands study finds the guardian electric hand dryers vs. Both consume more energy water and create waste compared to the most efficient hand dryers. Jet hand dryers which are energy efficient release 0 088 pounds per use.