Paper Towel Dispenser
Various accounts of how the paper towel dispenser was born exist mostly in folklore and urban legend, in terms of historical and anthropological credibility. Of course, the principle of the towel is ancient, literally. Since man has fashioned textiles and clothing material out of hides and plant material, there has been the towel, in principle.
Today the towel exists, in principle, in many forms; from the most obvious applications such as sheet of paper cloth; to the most common, disposable paper cloth in commercial areas; to high tech and seemingly environmentally friendly, such as air dry towel systems; to the downright technologically exotic, such as carbon dryers that charge water molecules on your hand with 1 electronic charge, seemingly evaporating the water from your hand in an instant.
Towel technologies haven’t strayed very far from that ancient principle of—well—basically, drying. You’re drying your hand. But, recently, public health and medical professionals have produced well warranted and founded concerns regarding this principle. The first issue with drying your hand with a towel is, if it’s reusable, chances are the common towel used, whether it’s in the home or in a commercial area, such as a common restroom at a shopping mall—harbors many bacteria that enjoy the porous structure of towels. In such a case, the supposed positive effects of washing your hands, are counteracted by this one negative, in fact may produce a net negative effect, if one decides to merely wet his hands—preparing any bacteria on his hands for mobilization and transferring those bacteria from his hands to the common towel, and then to the hands of later users. This is a common issue with the towel system in commercial restrooms that merely rolls and rotates the same roll of towel around. Whenever there’s a public source of anything, be that water, a common reusable towel, etc, you’re going to have contamination issues such as that be a potential problem.
Aside from public health and medical issues with the towel dispenser model is the environmental effect. Environmentalists argue that, even with the rotating towel, the electronic hot air dryer, etc the towel is a net negative. With the electronic hot air dryer for example, the environmental savings gained from not disposing of towels is overspent on the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by energy producers such as coal power plants. Even clean energy producers such as solar farms produce more pollution by powering the hot air dryer than would be the environmental cost of disposing of a throwaway towel. The model of towel or hand drying system that environmentalist would favor would be none at all.
Environmentalists believe it’s, for the most, a needless solution that society can do without.