Postby Tom Storer » October 17th, 2013, 8:00 am
In fact, it's air dryers that are more unsanitary. I know this because I read an article that said so, so it must be true.
The gist was this: when you dry your hands with a towel, cloth or paper, you physically wipe microbes off your skin. When you dry your hands in warm air, the microbes do not blow off in the evaporating water. They stay on your skin as the moisture disappears. In addition, microbes tend to thrive in warm, relatively humid restrooms, and so extra microbes in the circulating air light on your hands. The studies cited observed that people who dried their hands with an air dryer ended up with MORE microbes than they had before, whereas towels reduced the number of microbes.
So there.
(Of course, those microbes are usually perfectly harmless anyway, no matter how many you have on your hands.)
P.S. And the reason air dryers are increasingly popular has nothing to do with hygiene, anyway. It means no further investment is necessary and makes for a clutter-free restroom, freeing staff to do other things than tidy away wet towels.
Praise Cheeses!