Air Drying Our Hands and Blowing Out Our Expenses

Lower American Watershed is the name of the watershed that I live in. It is in the

American River Subregion and begins at Folsom Dam and ends at the Sacramento River near

downtown Sacramento. It has a population of around 600 thousand, which means there is a lot of

waste being produced each year. I would like to reduce the amount of waste that is produced

specifically in school bathrooms. This can be done by replacing all paper towel dispensers in

bathrooms with air hand dryers. Paper towels are meant for one time use and cannot be recycled

as paper towels and napkins are the last step in paper recycling cycle. In the other hand, air

dryers are supposed to last around seven years and do not require trash bins and trash bags. This

is a problem that I think can be solved or at least supported by installing electric air dryers to our

schools. I plan on applying this solution to my school’s bathrooms, as the students often run out

of paper towels too quickly, or just waste it completely by being ignorant. The electric hand

dryer would not only help with the environment and messy bathrooms, but also with school bills.

With a little research, I found an air dryer for around $80 that had good ratings and

consistent checks for questions by the creators. If we were to install 6 of these in bathrooms

across our campus, we would be saving $240 on the first year, even including the original cost of

the 6 electric hand dryers. Below is a graph showing the cost of using electric hand dryers

compared to paper towels in the next 2 years.

 Cost after one month Cost after one year Total Cost after 2
including machines including machines years including
(Approximate) (Approximate) machines
(Approximate)

Electric Hand Dryer $495 $660 $840

Paper Towel $75 $900 $1800

Dispenser

By using the electric hand dryers, the school would also be saving money by not wasting their

trash bags on the bathroom paper towel dispensers. Since paper towels are used so carelessly at

most schools, most bathrooms go through a couple of trashbags a day, which can add up to a lot

of money wasted.

Although some people and sources claim that electric hand drying allows bacteria to flow

around, this is something that can be looked into while buying a hand dryer. For example, hand

dryers without warm air are a lot less likely to spread around bacteria. Also, most electric hand

dryers contain an absorber filter, that keeps the air coming out of the dryers very clean. This is

also an issue that can appear with wet paper towels that don’t make their way into the garbage.

They cause a very dirty environment and require someone to clean them by hand, gross. There

are also people that dislike the very obnoxious sound that most hand dryers make. But to prevent

this, the electric hand dryer that I was able to find has a noise muffling system that keeps it quiet

and hard to hear from anyone outside of the bathroom. Last but not least, many claim that the air

hand dryers use a lot of electricity and can damage the environment by doing so. But according

to multiple sources such as ​The Slate ​and ​The Guardian,​ electric hand dryers actually release

around half of the amount of carbon dioxide emissions compared to paper towel dispensers.
The image above is the electric hand dryer that I was able to find with some research. I plan on

asking on the possibility of this coming to our school from the Vice Principals’ office. Compared

to paper towel dispensers, electric hand dryers are not only more effective and cleaner, but they

are also cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

 Cite References

http://www.sacriver.org/aboutwatershed/roadmap/watersheds/american/lower-american-river-wa
tershed

https://www.amazon.com/Instant-Automatic-Stainless-Reduction-Nozzle/dp/B076DXFJR6/ref=sr
_1_5?s=bedbath&ie=UTF8&qid=1517411978&sr=1-5&refinements=p_36%3A5 000-20000

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/11/paper-towels-drying-hands-energy

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2008/06/electric_hand_dry
ers_vs_paper_towels.html