A study by the Bladder and Bowel Foundation found that, on average, a person will most likely use the restroom six times per day. Once finished, you wash your hands and after a gentle scrub, your hands are fresh and polished. However, in the Saint Stephen’s Upper School men’s bathrooms, this euphoria will not last. At home, you can dry off your hands in a convenient, soft cloth, but on campus you have to face the slow, dreaded hand dryer in the men’s room. Male students cannot stand the hand dryer at school because of the the out-of-date technology, the possibility of it spreading disease (yes, some hand dryers cause germs to multiply), the inordinate time commitment, and the implication of sexism because paper towels are allowed in girls restrooms.  And something must be done about it!

The awful hand dryer this article will to refer to is the Electric-Aire LE Series Hand Dryer located in the second-floor men’s bathroom of the Turner building. The Electric-Aire model at our school is described on the corporate site as, “a nice, low cost dryer with an aluminum cover and white coating.  It is VERY quiet.”  Ironically, the description adds, “It does not have the speed or durability as others.” The cost for the Electric-Aire LE Series Hand Dryer is $263.35. However, when I checked World Dryer’s online store, I discovered they were no longer being sold. Not only has this technology long been outdated, but it also leads to the spread of infectious diseases.

The Journal of Applied Sciences found that jet hand dryers spread 1,300 more viral germs than paper towels. Another study by Queensland University in Brisbane found that a warm hand dryer, from a hygiene standpoint, is less hygienic than paper towels. That study also found that the heat from a hand dryer is not strong enough to filter out the bacteria on the hand dryer itself, making it essentially useless to even wash your hands. The FDA states that bacteria can survive and reproduce anywhere between 45 and 140 degrees fahrenheit. When I measured the heat produced by the Electric-Aire LE Series Hand Dryer, the temperature was 135 degrees fahrenheit, making it possible for the germs to reproduce. When students keeps their hands under the dryer for such a long time, it allows for more germs to spread.  The longer the duration, the more germs. Get it?

The time commitment involved in using the hand dryer is just too long. It takes me around three seconds to completely dry my hands with a paper towel. However, the hand dryer takes 45 seconds just to partially dry off my hands! This means, if a male students wants to completely dry his hands, he will need to commit to at least a minute of drying. That’s about 20% of the time that students are allowed between class changes.  And it doesn’t count the time it takes to use the restroom. Until someone in the management does something about this, students will still have to take time out of their classes to dry their hands, which is a disadvantage for only male students, as the girls have paper towels.

The upper school hand dryers were installed in 2003, after an incident where a student caused damage to school property by stuffing the toilet with paper towels — causing the school policy to change to only allowing hand dryers in male bathrooms.  Even though Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School claims to promote equal rights towards their students, the guys are forced to use hand dryers while the ladies have clean, crisp paper towels. Furthermore, according to a study by Ghent University in Belgium, women have stronger immune systems than men, so why do male students have to deal with the disease-geysers in their bathrooms? An anonymous faculty member stated that the removal of paper towels from the male bathrooms was due to a class that has already graduated.  So if this is the case, then why haven’t males been allowed to have paper towels since the perpetrators of that act are no longer here?

The current hand dryers in the men’s restrooms use outdated technology that spread diseases and take up too much time for almost 60% of students. However, paper towels are not the solution, either, because of the accumulation of trash and the negative impact that the use of paper leaves on the Earth. A better solution is to replace all hand dryers and paper towel dispensers with Dyson Air Blades. These hand dryers have a twelve-second drying time and have HEPA filters that catch 99.97% of bacteria and other particles. They also use less electricity, helping the school and the earth. We need to fix this before it is too late. As David Byrne once said (albeit about music), “It’s very foolish to underestimate the potential for the disease to spread.”