Are Hand Dryers Sanitary?
Public bathrooms are teeming with microbes! You know to wash your hands, but when choosing between a hand dryer or a paper towel to dry them off— what's your cleanest bet? Hosted by: Hank...
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Alright, what is the grossest thing about this situation? You’re in a public bathroom, you wash your hands, and use the hand dryer because they’re out of paper towels. Well, there are lots of microbes hanging around public bathrooms and, also, y’know, everywhere. But if your wet hands aren’t clean, that hand dryer might be flinging more microbes all over the bathroom. That being said, we’re not positive how different hand-drying methods can affect human health, despite all the clickbaity headlines about air dryers spreading germs. In a couple recent studies, researchers had people wear gloves and intentionally spread microbes on their hands to simulate crappy hand-washing. For example, one study published in 2016 in the Journal of Applied Microbio...
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Alright, what is the grossest thing about this situation? You’re in a public bathroom, you wash your hands, and use the hand dryer because they’re out of paper towels. Well, there are lots of microbes hanging around public bathrooms and, also, y’know, everywhere. But if your wet hands aren’t clean, that hand dryer might be flinging more microbes all over the bathroom. That being said, we’re not positive how different hand-drying methods can affect human health, despite all the clickbaity headlines about air dryers spreading germs. In a couple recent studies, researchers had people wear gloves and intentionally spread microbes on their hands to simulate crappy hand-washing. For example, one study published in 2016 in the Journal of Applied Microbio...
