I must admit I am often a jeans (more like shorts in Queensland) drier for two reasons, to save paper and it often seems the cleaner option.
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Same here, because I seem to be jinxed by having empty paper towel dispensers wherever I go. 
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Instead of using electric hand dryers or paper towels a third option is to simply use an alcohol based hand sanitizer.
I always have a small pocket size bottle with me everywhere I go and its quite handy to be able to quickly clean up your hands after eating or being able to sanitize your hands after touching something you have good reason to believe to be contaminated.
There are times when there is no substitute for scrubbing your hands thoroughly with soap/handwash and plenty of water, but then we need to dry them and hopefully you will have more than one option to use as some public restrooms do provide paper towel dispensers in addition to electric hand dryers.
I agree with the sentiments expressed here about the Dyson airblade hand dryer and I donât like any other electric hand dryers either.
I believe paper towels are more hygienic but there is the problem of people leaving used paper towels laying around as shown above and waste receptacles are all too often overflowng in public restrooms and some public ones owned by local councils are the worst of all with absolutely apallling levels of filth and complaints to the concerned council seemingly have no effect.
I try to avoid public restrooms like the plague and always make a point of using my home bathroom immediately before venturing out for any prolonged periods of time.
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Interesting - I know of a âcorporateâ where all bathrooms have button soap and automatic taps (proximity/IR- touch nothing) with warm water, and auto (proximity again) paper towells, and some with automatic doors you can trigger with your hip if you donât mind looking like you are dancing. In the ones that donât - many people grab the last bit of paper towel and open the door with that, tossing it in the bin as they shimmy through. Itâs possible to go from water to âclean exitâ without touching anything further with your hands. There are no air dryers/etc. This is in a mission critical location and was introduced during the bird flu scare days - which doesnât completely make sense, but you get the idea 
I use the towel on the door handle shimmy in public places, though I wonder whether you are better off not washing at all, if you have reasonable personal cleanliness, at least in the ânumber one onlyâ scenario ?? Number 2 only if you have âwipersâ !!
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Agree, air driers are just a waste of energy and not that clever. They are blowing the remains of any bacteria conveniently suspended with water vapour all over you and the bath room!
The theory is properly washed hands are bacteria free. Not everyone is particular in habit, while others seem to avoid washing at all, ensuring any manual doors are a bacteria crossroads?
The Dyson air blade pics must serve to demonstrate the hazard of the air driers. âTenuguiâ might be the better solution for all. Although I associate these with self opening and closing toilet seats with built in personal washing systems. And a pleasant background melody to disguise the audible evidence of bodily function?
Perhaps we need to further automate all public toilets with suitable AI in preference to AI for cars? The totally âhands-freeâ Uber self driving dunny and the Google self wiping toilet services await our future needs!
A ready universal market, no regulatory hurdles, and much simpler and cheaper to develop than hands-free self driving cars? No need for basins, soap, paper towel or air driers. How environmentally clever!
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I tried the hand sanitisers but they leave my hands sticky. So itâs back to soap and water.
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I avoid those airblade things but not because they may be dirty. They are so incredibly loud that they hurt my ears and therefore must be contributing to hearing loss. I hate walking past when others are using them for that same reason. I wonder what the official DB level is when people move their hands across the stream of air.
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Agree -I have noise sensitivities and Iâd like to know what the DB limit is - the hand dryer in public loos at my shopping centre is so loud It itâs mildly traumatising - the acoustics of place add to misery, I think. I can find no DB rating on infernal machine.
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If you have a smart phone, you can at least get an idea of the dB level. Youâll probably need to install an app that makes use of the microphone for sound level measurements. Itâs not high precision, but does give a reasonably accurate measure in my experience. I use AndroSensor, which also uses all the various other sensors- GPS, tilt, magnetic,optical etc built into smart phones, and can log .csv files for later viewing.
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Thank you Gordon, I donât have a smart phone though. I could ask the Centre Manager to find out (although Iâm in ârun awayâ mode by then), but would still have to find out what the limit should be. Appreciate your response.
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I have never seen one of these Dyson Airblades, but perhaps another forum member with a smartphone could take some measurements?
I guess the measurements required would be with the phone held at operating distance, and also say 1 or 1.5m away, typical of a walk-past distance.
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There is some information from the manufacturers and also measured by other parties:
Dyson Airblade V technical specis indicate that it has a sound power level of 79dB and a sound level of 63 dB @2m. Dyson market this airblade as being 35% quieter that their other model.
Their Airblade dB technical specs donât have sound levels, but the American Acoustic Society has tested some in the past (2010) including the Airblade dB. They measured 90 dBA with hands in the airstream and 87 dBA with no hands.
Other models had sound levels up to 100 dBA,
This paper also discusses noise levels from airflow hand dryers.
This retailer also has a list of some other drier sound levels. It is worth noting that they nominate 85dB for the Dyson airblade DB which is lower than that recorded by the American Acoustic Society. The difference could be age of the unit and also the reflection of noise in a hard surface bathroomâŠwhere a manufacturerâs spec sheets are likely to be in a controlled environment different to a bathroom.
To put these levels into perspective, this is is a sound level shart which provides a indication of the sound levels of common everyday itemsâŠ
In Queensland, which I expect other states to be the same or very similar, the exposure standard for noise is defined in the WHS Regulation as LAeq,8h of 85 dB(A) or an LC,peak of 140 dB(C).
These are also adjusted for higher noise exposure levels as:
The Dyson airblade V would meet these limits for say a toilet cleaner working all day cleaning the same toilet wth the airblade continuously operational, while, the Dyson Airblade DB is unlikely to meet this same requirement. However, it is unlikely that a airblow hand drier would be operational continuously nor the cleaner being present for a whole shift.
For the incidental exposure to airblower noise when visiting a toilet would meet the workplace safe noise level guidelines as most would only be visiting for less than 15 minutes to 2 hours (depending on the airflow hand drier).
Frequency responses of ones ear (ability to hear particular frequencies) an also impact on the nuisance of different sounds. This may also be a contributing factors to ones sensations when using a airflow dryer rather than sound level per say.
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Iâve never seen one looking like that, though I do occasionally wonder about whatâs blowing up onto me in the air.
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I agree. They hurt my ears
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Iâve never encountered one that looked as bad as in the picture but still despise the things. Theyâre noisy as hell, blow little drops of water into my face, and the narrow opening makes it difficult to completely prevent my hands coming into contact with the edges.
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Totally disagree with the majority. I donât think people have any clue about microbiology. Firstly this study focuses on hospitals where the average person has a serious illness. So on average the accumulation of germs is more severe than what youâd expect in public - unless you think everyone around you has pneumonia, bird flu and meningitis on their morning commute.
Germs are good for you within reason, you need to exercise your immune system because we donât have targeted anti-virals for most viruses and your immune system is a use it or lose it thing. There are plenty of people who donât even wash their hands at all and then touch trains, restaurant tables, escalator rails, elevator buttons, or whatever - waiters who donât wash their hands but set your table.
You are constantly exposed to people sneezing with the flu or common colds and your food is full of trillions of germs. If you seriously think the Dyson fan in a public toilet is going to kill you, then you probably have a germaphobic mental disorder and need to seek professional help.
In fact itâs been shown in many research papers that the worst possible thing to dry your hand on are your clothes which come in contact with people and surfaces covered in germs.
Basically, get over it. Electricity is a much better option as it is moving to green energy. There is a HUGE amount of energy and water run off in paper production which causes serious harm to the environment.
Please spend a few months researching your topics before you comment with fear mongering. I know thatâs what people think the internet is for, but save it for facebook
So perhaps post links to the alternative studies? I do feel we are way too âcleanâ for our own good, but Iâd be interested if there are studies to support this âŠ
Suggestion: a big dispenser of hand sanitizer near the main door of public bathrooms to get rid of the 99.99 % of the germs we picked up while in there from the soap, the hand dryer, the taps and the door handles, and while drying our hands on our t shirts and jeansâŠetcâŠetcâŠ
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Hand sanitizer has been shown to cause other problems such as increasing the absorption of BPA 100 times from receipts which can lead to cancer and sterility.
I find these guys to be reliable enough. But you need to look up the papers yourself on this. I never store locations and it takes months or years of researching in my spare time - which is why I love choice who do the research for me. Heck I researched pros and cons of eating beef for 15 years before I cut beef out of my diet
Hand sanitizer is designed for hospitals where the viruses are severe or in cases where you have a major infection but need to go out into the world⊠Like when I had pneumonia at home with a 6 month old baby and an 18 month old baby would could have died within 24 hours of contracting it. The hospital allowed me home if I wore masks at all times and used hand sanitizer and stayed away from my kids as much as possible.
Hand sanitizer is not for use every day in the real world
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Funnily enough I also saw this video which seems more transparent than a single study with unknown bias
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