paper towels or electric drier?

[space-time]

What’s less harmful for the environment: using a paper towel to try your hands or running an electric drier for 20 seconds? Some of the paper towels can be recycled (but not all, and that also takes some energy, and some trees are cut down to make paper), on the other hand the heat form the drier is lost forever. Has there been any study on this topic? I see both advertized as "ecologic" but which one is and which one is not?

[davester]

Wipe your hands on your pants.

[Robert M]

Space,

Don't forget that the dryer requires electricity, which when produced requires fuel. Seems to be a six of one, half a dozen of the other kind of situation upon first glance. Personally, I despise most electric dryers. With a few notable exceptions, they don't do a good job drying one's hands.

Robert

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Weave your own towels out of the hair from your shower drain and power your dryer from methane from your compost pile if it is gas, or from solar cells if it is electric. (

I think towels would end up better. They take more energy to make initially but last a lot longer.

[voodoopenguin]

On my recent visit to the Eden Project in Cornwall I came across a drier that was new to me, the Dyson Airblade. Amazing device that worked very quickly and very efficiently. In fact i was so taken by it I put my hands back under the tap to try it again without even shaking off the excess water and just a few seconds my hands were dry. Didn't save much energy doing that but the process is supposed to be much more efficient than the normal air driers as no heat is used. My old skin looked weird during the process as the thin jet of air comes out at 400mph.

[Mr Downtown]

I don't understand why people think cutting down trees to make paper is somehow harmful to the environment. The trees used for kraft paper are virtually all planted for just that purpose. They're not old-growth hardwoods or the margin of the rain forest.

Now if you want to talk about other environmental impacts--chlorine discharge, energy needed to dewater the pulp, landfill implications--fine. But paper trees are largely a crop, like any other, and they absorb carbon dioxide while they're growing. If we use less paper, the plantation managers will simply plant fewer trees for future needs.

[comaplate]

Why not use both?

Start with the paper towels to get the bulk of the water off, then use the dryer to take care of the remaining dampness.

[OWC Jamie]

shake (your hands) and drip dry



do these paper towels come from China ?

[Chupa Chupa]

I really could not care less. I go for the towel b/c I need something to grab the door handle with. Ever notice how many people DON"T wash afterwards? It's gross. If I'm in a bathroom w/o a door sometimes I'll just shake my hands off, but that's more out of laziness than anything else.

[GGD]

[quote comaplate]Why not use both?

Start with the paper towels to get the bulk of the water off, then use the dryer to take care of the remaining dampness.
Put the paper towel under the electric drier and run it until the paper catches fire, and then dry your hands over the flames. Seems like the worst of both worlds.