First of all, they’re pretty ineffective. Many of them
automatically shut off after a specified length of time, and I’m all like, “Excuse
me, my hands aren’t dry yet,” and then I begin another cycle. As a related sub-grievance,
they take at least three times as long as using paper towels. Second, they’re
really loud. When was the last time paper towels sounded like a leaf-blower in
an enclosed space? Third, I think part of the marketed appeal of them to
consumers is in their “more sanitary” nature over paper towels. I fail to see
how a machine that blows water droplets from someone’s hand into the air is
more sanitary than paper towels. Some of these machines—like the ones where you
slowly pull your hands out—collect water at the bottom. That seems far more unsanitary
to me: a pool of stagnant water congealing where you put your just-washed
hands. (Also, why do people assert that paper towels are unsanitary? Paper
towels come pre-packaged, so they’re sterile. In addition, you use them after
you’ve washed your hands, so presumably, used paper towels might be some of the
most sanitary things out there.) Fourth, I think another part of the marketed
appeal is the claimed waste reduction—saving trees and whatever. Ok, sure, but
each use of an electric hand dryer comes at the cost of burning coal to
generate the electricity. Maybe the relative emissions from one use is less
than the net negative effect of using three paper towels, but I somehow doubt
that Dyson and other air-dryer manufacturers have actually studied and measured
this. Once this is demonstrably shown, I’ll buy into the air hand-dryer craze.
Until then, just compost your paper towels.
Of course, the probable reason these devices have become so
popular is that you install them once and only need to pay attention to them
when they break. With paper towel dispensers, you need to repeatedly monitor and
replenish the supply. That’s labor, which is a cost. I doubt that many of the
owners of these devices care at all about the four points listed above and
instead care purely about cost.
* * *
Growing up, my parents made us wash dishes in a way which I found
puzzling even as a child. In an effort to save water, we only used the
dishwasher’s “light wash” setting. Since that setting wasn’t very thorough, we
had to rinse and lightly scrub everything before it went in the dishwasher to
ensure that no residual food would remain after the cycle. This also meant that
putting pots and pans in the dishwasher was out of the question. Such items
required enough scrubbing to get the residual food off that it was basically already
done. Also, they do occupy rack space pretty inefficiently.
This was silly. I’m pretty sure dishwashers were invented in
the first place to make the process of washing dishes more efficient. Perhaps
historically they used more water than handwashing did, and their appeal was
merely the convenience factor (I’m looking at you, 1950’s); but given how
market economies work, more efficient dishwashers would ultimately have had a
competitive advantage over less efficient ones. And the fact that water-stricken
states such as California don’t have strict dishwasher selection laws for building
permitting leads me to believe that dishwashers don’t use more water than hand
washing.
So the point of this vignette is that my parents were wrong,
and dishwashers should be fully embraced and used to the fullest of their
abilities. I will say, though, it is quite difficult unlearning all those years
of “rinse then put in the dishwasher, but no pots and pans!” I almost always
rinse my plates before putting them in; and I find myself leaving pots and pans
in the sink to wash by hand later.
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