SPECIAL FEATURE
THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF HAND DRYING
M
any people don’t realise that drying hands is just as important as washing them: damp hands can spread up to 1,000 times
more bacteria than dry hands. People often give up drying with traditional warm air hand dryers – infuriated by their inefficiency – opting rather to wipe damp hands on clothes or leave with wet hands. When considered alongside running costs, speed, and environmental impact, the drying method employed in a washroom is an important decision for any facilities manager.
Energy efficiency should be a concern when it comes to hand- drying. The environmental impact of hand drying may seem insignificant, but it soon adds up. A leading Massachusetts-based research university has recently published its findings on the relative impact of different hand drying methods. Using a lifecycle analysis – an encompassing method that considers all life cycle stages from manufacturing to end of life – researchers scrutinized seven different hand drying systems. They found the Dyson Airblade™ hand dryer to be the most sustainable way to completely dry hands. Paper towels and warm air hand dryers have the highest environmental toll generating 70% or more carbon emissions than the Dyson Airblade™ hand dryer.
THE PROBLEM WITH WARM-AIR HAND DRYERS
The majority of environmental impact of warm air dryers occurs during the ‘in use’ phase. Most of them use old technology; relying on warm air to make the water evaporates from the hands. This is a slow process that uses large amounts of electricity. Powering heating elements make warm air dryers up to 80% less energy efficient than the Dyson Airblade™ hand dryer.
THE PROBLEM WITH PAPER TOWELS The study also found that recycled paper towels are no better for the environment than virgin ones. Waste accounts for only a fraction of recycled paper’s carbon footprint: 65% is created
during manufacturing. Recycled and virgin towels both generate over three times more carbon emissions than the Dyson Airblade™ hand dryer – generating waste, consuming more energy and using more water.
If
every UK citizen visited the bathroom just once a day for a year and used two
paper towels each time, there would be enough paper waste to cover the entire surface of London. Dyson Airblade™ hand dryer creates no waste.
DYSON AIRBLADE HAND DRYER Traditional hand-dryers can take 43 seconds to dry your hands. The Dyson Airblade™ takes 10 seconds. Its speed comes from the fact that it uses an altogether different technology to dry hands. Instead of trying to make water evaporate from hands with warm air, the Dyson Airblade™ hand dryer literally scrapes it off your hands. Using patented technology it creates a high velocity sheet of air that is channelled through a 0.3 millimetre gap, no thicker than an eyelash, at 400mph. eet of air acts like an invisible windscreen wiper that wipes moisture from hands leaving them dry, in just 10 seconds. Doing away with energy- hungry heating elements, and using the efficient Dyson Digital Motor means that the Dyson Airblade™ hand dryer uses only
1600w compared to a 2400w motor found in typical hand dryer. It’s not just better for the environment
but it’s better for your balance sheet, the Dyson Airblade™ also uses up to four times less energy per use compared to a conventional warm air hand dryers. Airblade™ costs up to 80% less to run than warm air hand and 97% less than paper towels over the course of a year. No more costs of maintaining supply, cleaning or waste disposal. For Mark Hoskins, Branch Facilities Manager at EDF Energy, reducing the environmental impact and saving money of the company’s facilities at lower costs was crucial. EDF purchased 125 Dyson units across their eight sites. The difference has been marked. “It’s incredible, we’re saving, on average, £2,800 a month now we’ve installed the Dyson Airblade™ hand dryer,” he explains. “It’s not just the cost savings and reduction in landfill that have impressed EDF Energy - the Dyson Airblade™ hand dryers have also led to a reduction in the business’ carbon footprint.”
Choosing the right hand drying method for your company’s offices and facilities is an important decision. Don’t let green wash cloud your choices – Dyson Airblade™ could be the solution. For more information visit:
http://www.dysonairblade.co.uk To download the Full Report visit:
http://msl.mit.edu/publications/HandDry ingLCA-Report.pdf
PUBLIC SECTOR SUSTAINABILITY • VOLUME 2 ISSUE 1 21
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