Before you read this post, if you’ve got some cash on you, I’d recommend just popping down to the local shops and investing in a jumbo-sized bottle of hand sanitiser. Got it? Okay, good.
So, you know those fancy Dyson Airblade hand dryers? The award-winning ones, which fell out of sci-fi films into public toilets and dry your hands in just a few blissful seconds? Well, turns out they may not be as effective as we’ve been led to believe.
In fact, the world’s “most hygienic hand dryer” actually spreads 60 times more germs than the regular kind and a whopping 13,000 times more germs than paper towels, according to a new study.
Research published in the Journal of Applied Microbiology in January found the Dyson dryer’s 690km/h blasts of warm air are capable of spreading germs a whopping 3m, whereas your standard dryer will only take them 75cm. As for the humble paper towel? Well that’ll only spread ’em 25cm.
In the era of super bugs, when 40 per cent of hospital infections are thought to stem from poor hand washing, this seems important.
NOONE IS SAFE.
And yet, the plot thickens.
Dyson has already panned the research labelling it "scaremongering" by the dastardly paper towel industry. In fact, they say, a similar study was published in 2014 and was funded by none other than the European Tissue Symposium.
"The paper towel industry has scaremongered with this [type of] research for the past four years," the spokesperson told the UK's Independent.
Top Comments
I've never used them..........never will!
OK, two things; 1) most places use antibacterial or antimicrobial soap these days and it will kill anything that might be on your hands, 2) if people actually wash their hands correctly there is nothing to worry about. Even just using regular soap and washing your hands correctly you won't spread any germs.
And by correctly I mean, you get you hands wet, put soap on them, lather and rub your hands, up to your wrists, together like you are applying lotion for at least 15-20 sec, and continue to rub them together as you rinse your hands. Make sure all the soap is gone and viola, you have clean hands. No need for antibacterial or microbial anything because they kill the good germs as well as the bad ones leaving you vulnerable to illnesses like colds and the flu.