While you may think that the air dryers in public restrooms are the best bet for preventing the spread of germs, a new study performed by the Journal of Applied Microbiology suggests the opposite is true. How could this be? With all the automatic tools in the bathroom, we hardly touch anything anymore. Apparently, that fact doesn’t help when it comes to the Dyson hand dryer’s inability to prevent the spread of germs.
Dyson hand dryer study findings
In the study by the Journal of Applied Microbiology, they had participants glove their hands, cover them in viruses and proceed to dry their hands with different methods. They then measured how many and how far virus particles were spread. Additionally, they captured data regarding how long the viruses lingered in the air after the initial spread. You can read the harder details of the study here, but the short of it, the Dyson hand dryer spread 1300 times more germs than traditional paper towel drying. Moreover, the Dyson air dryer spread the germs further than even the non-Dyson hand air dryer and the viruses lingered longer, too. In fact, 15 minutes after drying with the Dyson, there were 50 times more virus particles in the air than the regular air dryer and 100 times more than paper towels!
Newsflash: people don’t wash their hands all the time
The researchers didn’t take the approach of studying how many viruses clean hands were infected with after using the dryer, rather how drying unclean hands would affect those who did wash their hands, like considerate humans. Dyson defends the clean efficacy of their hand dryers by testing on the germ spreading of clean hands. This is almost a throw away study. It’s only inevitable that the people who don’t wash or don’t properly wash their hands use the air dryers too.
Maybe we should steer clear of the Dyson hand dryer and switch to traditional towel drying. Are the spread of viruses worth saving a few trees? Who knows.
