Paper Towels or Hand Dryers: Which Is Actually Better for Your Health?

A bathroom hand dryer

Pathogens are everywhere in public restrooms, so sanitary practices such as handwashing must be utilized to prevent the spread of disease (Gião & Vardoulakis, 2022). When drying one’s hands in a public restroom, people often face a simple choice: paper towels or hand dryers. While this choice may appear benign at first, there is more to it than most people think. More specifically, bathroom hand dryers have the potential to disperse aerosol droplets throughout an area, which may lead to the spread of airborne pathogens that result in illness and disease (Huesca-Espitia et al., 2018). As such, the use of public hand dryers may have drawbacks worth considering.

Hand Dryer Types

There are two main types of hand dryers: warm air hand dryers and jet air dryers. While warm air hand dryers utilize both airspeed and heat to dry hands, jet air dryers mainly utilize airspeed to physically blast water off of one’s hands. The airspeed is the velocity of air expelled from the device's nozzle, which can exceed 400 mph in some cases. While jet air dryers have an advantage over warm air hand dryers in their ability to physically remove water from hands, they still spread aerosols when the dryer is in use (Suen et al., 2019). Paper towels, on the other hand, were shown to dry hands without aerosol spread, demonstrating that this hand-drying method has benefits over conventional hand dryers (Suen et al., 2019). 

Aerosols

Hand drying is often an essential part of handwashing. Simply washing one’s hands is not enough, as wet hands may transfer microbes more readily than dry hands (Patrick et al, 1997); therefore, to maintain hygiene, hand drying is needed. Hand dryers have been shown to directly spread bacteria within a radius of 3 feet of the emitting device (Suen et al., 2019). They have also been found to disperse sporeformers over long distances from the source, potentially via the air conditioning system (Huesca-Espitia et al., 2018). These sporeformers, which can germinate into active bacteria that may cause disease, may be spread throughout a building, allowing contamination of various areas. This spread of airborne pathogens is a significant issue. Bacteria that spread in this manner have the potential to cause infection, whether in the bloodstream, peritoneal space, or eyes (Huesca-Espitia et al., 2018). Although handwashing is needed to prevent the spread of microbes, drying one’s hands in a less sanitary fashion makes handwashing less effective. On the contrary, hand drying with paper towels does not spread any airborne pathogens, as there are no strong air currents available to blow microbes throughout an environment.

Three neatly aligned paper towel dispensers and waste bins in a modern restroom, emphasizing hygiene and organization.

Improvements and Alternatives

Although hand dryers have their drawbacks, they do have room for improvement. Hand dryers retrofitted with HEPA filters showed a four fold reduction in bacteria deposited when compared to dryers without these filters (Huesca-Espitia et al, 2018). Although this is promising, HEPA filters do not completely eliminate the risk of airborne aerosol spread. Air-based hand dryers eliminate paper waste and reduce the need to touch various surfaces to dry one’s hands. Paper towels often have this disadvantage, as using this drying method requires interaction with towel dispenser levers and mechanisms, which may, in and of themselves, carry pathogens that partially negate the benefits of handwashing. 

Paper towels also have the drawback of using large amounts of paper for hand drying, driving up costs and increasing environmental damage compared to hand dryers. Environmental effects can be reduced, as when using Vinda M-Fold Hand Towels, there was very little difference in bacterial removal rate between using either one or two towels, indicating that using only a single towel conveys the same hygienic benefits as two towels (Suen et al., 2019). Additionally, paper towel dispensers can be designed to avoid physical contact with the dispenser itself, as motion-detection sensors can automatically dispense towels, reducing the risk of contamination. Paper towels also take less time to dry hands, as individuals utilizing one paper towel can take on average 17.5 seconds, while individuals utilizing two paper towels take on average 20.6 seconds, a significant decrease from the 27.4 seconds for the jet air dry and 45 seconds for the warm air dryer (Suen et al., 2019). Furthermore, paper towels can be used to open bathroom doors when leaving, which further reduces the spread of microorganisms. 

Aerosol dispersal may not be a major issue in locations generally frequented by healthy individuals, but in environments such as hospitals, laboratories, and nursing homes, the spread of airborne particles can be severely detrimental to patient health and lab results. Hospitals or other high-risk environments may be more susceptible to disease due to the presence of immunocompromised patients, and, as such, all possible precautions, such as cleaning with paper towels, must be taken to reduce the spread of microbes. Drying hands using paper towels significantly reduces the amount of bacteria on one’s hands (Suen et al., 2019). It does so while not expelling vast quantities of bacteria through the air. Because of this, it is recommended to use paper towels instead of hand dryers for their hygienic nature. 

Conclusion

As wet hands are a nuisance and a potential source of pathogen spread, hand drying after washing is a necessary component of keeping one’s hands clean. While hand dryers avoid wasting resources on paper towels, they fall short on hygiene, as they are known to spread microbes within and sometimes beyond the device's immediate vicinity. While HEPA filters on hand dryers can reduce the spread of microorganisms, they do not eliminate this risk. Paper towels do not spread airborne microbes and can effectively and cleanly dry hands, which is why they are recommended as the hand-drying technique to use in locations where the spread of pathogens may be severely detrimental to the individuals who use them. 

Written by Caden Guo and edited by Aldrin V. Gomes, PhD.

References

Gião, M. S., & Vardoulakis, S. (2022). Aerosols and Bacteria From Hand Washing and Drying in Indoor Air. Frontiers in public health, 10, 804825. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.804825

Huesca-Espitia, L. D. C., Aslanzadeh, J., Feinn, R., Joseph, G., Murray, T. S., & Setlow, P. (2018). Deposition of Bacteria and Bacterial Spores by Bathroom Hot-Air Hand Dryers. Applied and environmental microbiology, 84 (8), e00044-18. https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.00044-18

Patrick, D. R., Findon, G., & Miller, T. E. (1997). Residual moisture determines the level of touch-contact-associated bacterial transfer following hand washing. Epidemiology and infection, 119 (3), 319–325. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0950268897008261

Suen, L. K. P., Lung, V. Y. T., Boost, M. V., Au-Yeung, C. H., & Siu, G. K. H. (2019). Microbiological evaluation of different hand drying methods for removing bacteria from washed hands. Scientific reports, 9 (1), 13754. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-50239-4