Slashdot Mirror
Dyson Airblades 'Spread Germs 1,300 Times More Than Paper Towels' (telegraph.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: The Journal of Applied Microbiology published a report claiming Dyson Airblade hand-driers spread 60 times more germs than standard air dryers, and 1,300 times more than standard paper towels. The researchers from University of Westminster conducted their research by dipping their hands in water containing a harmless virus. Then, they dried their hands with either a Dyson Airblade, a standard hot-air dryer, or a paper towel. Their research shows the Dyson drier's 430mph blasts of air are capable of spreading viruses up to 3 meters across a bathroom. Typical driers spread viruses up to 75cm (about 2.5ft), and the hand towels 25cm (less than 1ft).
Yes, but it's a Dyson which means it cost twice what any other solution cost, so it's go to be good, right?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It actually gets my hands dry, unlike traditional air dryers ("press button, wipe hands on pants").
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
But... But... It's the "world's most hygienic hand dryer!" It says it right on the thing!
But I tend to wash my hands instead of dunking them in vats of bacteria before drying them, whichever method of drying I use.
Typically when the dryer starts up, I can feel a fine spray of water hit me in the face. I avoid these dryers now, even if it means using my pant legs to dry my hands.
At least the old fashioned blow dryers that take forever to dry your hands don't direct a spray of water into your face.
Evidently, that's not a joke any longer. As James Dyson says,
"Like everyone we get frustrated by products that don’t work properly. As design engineers we do something about it."
Shouldn't the premise for testing hand dryers be that the hands are washed with soap and are "clean" but wet? If we taint the water itself and measure how far that spreads, is that really a realistic test of how hygienic the dryer is?
IIRC, The Mythbusters a couple years ago tested the efficacy of air hand dryers versus paper towels, and found that paper towels were more effective and more hygienic.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Own one for two seconds and I defy you not to realise this.
See that damp stain on the wall underneath? And the puddle on the floor? Yeah, you washed your hands about five times, and it looks like you've been having water fights in front of the thing.
And then there was me who was always told that, actually, washing your hands (the process of wetting them) does little anyway. It's the drying / wiping that actually scrapes the crap off. Otherwise you literally just have a slightly damper environment for the bacteria on your hands anyway.
There's a reason that surgeons "scrub" up. It has little to do with the water itself, which just acts as a lubricant to assist the soap (which sticks to dirt and water) in sticking to the dirt and then providing a way to know where you've washed and to remove those parts that might have captured the dirt. It's the wiping / scrubbing / vigorous rub-down that actually removes that crap from you (and onto the floor / towel / soap / sink, obviously).
Like the Romans - who bathed in oil and then scraped it off, knowing the OIL took the dirt with it, not that smelling like a pizza for the rest of the day actually did anything in itself.
The reason we have hand-driers is because such scrubbing in public is considered... "wrong" somehow. You can't share a towel without transfer of bacteria, and people think individual paper towel is somehow killing the planet. Like blowing your nose - don't put it in a handkerchief and carry it around with you. Wipe it off on a tissue and throw the fucking thing away.
But, to be honest, it barely matters. Bacteria don't last long in those kinds of environments so long as they're cleaned occasionally, you can't really avoid spreading them anyway (it's not a question of some precisely contained particles - watch one of the slow-mo videos of a sneeze, it doesn't matter what you do it's like someone sneezing a handful of flour - it goes fecking everywhere, but, yes, put your hand up because it does stop quite a lot of your snot landing on someone else), and gadgets like this are quick and convenient which means more people might bother to wash their hands just to try it out.
But if you ever used one of these, I defy you to not have seen the crap and water on the floor underneath and around it that gets blasted off everyone else's hands.
Like all things Dyson (and Apple), half-decent idea, pretty aesthetics, fucking terrible design, but add a premium and be different and people buy it.
One of the authors of the study works for Kimberly Clark, omnipresent maker of paper towels. How convenient.
pretty sure people didn't switch to be "more efficient", wasn't the idea to save paper ?
Yes, it was to save paper.
That stuff doesn't grow on trees...
For the next study, I recommend they compare the decibels of the Dyson Airblade dryer, as experienced by the user, to the decibels of a jet engine on the tarmac, as experienced by a baggage handler wearing ear plugs.
I'm betting the dryer would win.
I'm pretty sure they say it's "to save paper" while really meaning "we're sick of emptying the trash can all the time" or possibly "we think it's less expensive because the electric budget goes somewhere else".
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
The Mythbusters already confirmed that air powered had drying spread germs more than paper.
Have you tried using one of them as a urinal while they were blowing?
Worst urinal EVER!!
Uh, no, the warmth from a standard air dryer does not appreciably speed up the proliferation of remaining germs on your hands. The heat does not persist long enough to make a difference in bacterial growth. Bacteria do not multiply _that_ fast.
The purpose of a Dyson is to be _quick_ and thorough at drying your hands, which is something that standard air dryers are pitiably bad at.
I called a friend on not washing his hands. His reply was "In the Navy they teach us not to piss on our fingers".
Last time I was in the toilets and used one of these things my piss went everywhere. Def not hygienic.
As a doctor I could suggest washing your hands with soap and water instead of virus and water. The former is the approved method whereas the latter is a little to new and usually frowned upon.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I first encountered these idiot things in my first overseas trip to London and Paris back in 2010 at many shopping centres and airports.
The stupid goddamn things have a very small slit to put your hands in, where the air is coming rapidly on to your hands in a very tight line / wave of air.
The problem is in the design that you put your hands inside this small gap and it's really bloody easy for your palms or back of your hand or your shirt to easily touch the top or bottom of the opening.
https://www.thememo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/dyson-airblade.jpg
It's simply too small a space to put your hands. Sure if you're careful you're fine but it reminded me of playing the old electronic board game 'operation' trying to not touch the sides.
I realise Mythbusters seemed to confirm that an air dryer IS worse than paper towel for germs, but I still prefer a combination of both (towel then dryer) but I'd take a regular hand dryer any day over the Dyson, stupid bloody thing.
After reading this story, I disagree with the process and direction of the experiment. The use of any hand dryer is to dry your hands AFTER you wash your hands with SOAP and WATER. NOT after you dip your hands in known bacteria. The experiment is obvious, and misleading. I don't see how hand dryer manufactures, including Dyson have any relation to this. To put it more bluntly, I wipe my nose after a major sneeze, and hold my hands outside of a car window at 140mph. The result would be the same as this experiment. For the record, I'm an IT guru with 20 years experience, with physics, engineering, electrical, and electronic experience.
Who the hell washes their hands with viruses instead of soap? If you just washed your hands, what are you going to spread? If the water is so bacteria-laden that you're going to spread them even after using soap, you and everyone else in the room have a lot more to worry about.