Automatic Paper Towel Dispensers
Touchless paper towel dispensers came into vogue in the 1980s and 1990s, when economies of scale on the mass produced sensors and circuit boards required to produce the systems were achieved. The wide, efficient, and cost effective distribution of the systems were the only reasons this type of towel dispenser became a de facto standard in most high traffic commercial area restrooms. The general awareness of germs and the spread of communicable diseases pushed demand for these systems out and over a quantity of critical mass.
Today in institutions as health- and medical- centric as hospitals, public health agencies, and medical foundations, the automatic towel dispenser type is indispensable. The automated process eliminates many of the variables for contamination, and from the user’s perspective and experience, the entire process seems and feels to be as sterile as can be.
Above and beyond the health and medical benefits, there is the actual time savings that is achieved by this. Automatic dispensers such as the touchless system dispense an equal length of paper towel, at the same speed, for everybody. What’s eliminated, often—and of particular interest to extremely high traffic restrooms—is the varying towel supplies used at the dispenser, since the length and time it takes to dispense is commoditized and standardized—i.e. no more waiting in line for the one person that decides to hog all the towels.
There are the systems’ detractors however. Most critics of the system argue that folks who want a lot of towels, can stand in front of the dispenser for however long the person wishes. While this is true, it’s easier to argue with such a person, with a simple statement of: you’ve had your sheet, please let the line continue. Yet another critique of the system is that contamination is still a very real prospect. Critics cite a statistic that most contaminated towels are contaminated before or at the time the dispenser is loaded, which means, users don’t have anything to do with it, and that the contamination benefit is actually a non issue.
Further, environmentalists argue that towels are hardly necessary to begin with. It’s an oft cited statistic by this side of the debate, that most towels that are used in the United States originated and are manufactured in China. The narrative argument along this line is that one should imagine all of that freight and cargo ship oil used; used to ship what? Towels? A product that’s used for no more than a couple of seconds, and then tossed into a waste bin of other products that won’t be recycled; won’t be reused; won’t be synthesized into another material: it’s almost pure waste.