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So, while on my roadtrip home from Maine yesterday, I had an interesting conversation in the McDonalds’ restroom. (It was so busy with others driving south that there was plenty of time to engage. Really, had I not been chatting, I probably would have been tweeting.)
See, McDonalds, as well as all of the rest-stops where we stopped, had hand dryers, not paper towels. Now, there’s plenty to debate here, because neither are ideal for the Earth (one uses trees and the other energy.) Personally, I prefer paper towels because germs aren’t flying all over. The lady in front of me commented that she prefers them because hand dryers make her skin dry. Another person in line expressed her preference towards paper towels because “rub your hands vigrously never works until you rub your skin off.”
In the hand warmer camp, one woman commented that she likes it because it warms her up in the often cold restrooms while another said that she would never use paper towels due to waste.
Finally, like I said, long line, a McDonald’s employee entered. We asked her about the lack of paper towels. She shrugged. So we determined that, truly, only on a guess, places that don’t have paper towels likely don’t have employees interested in refilling or emptying trash. Or maybe its a question of cost.
Join the bathroom conversation: which do you prefer–hand dryers or paper towels?
PS I never asked the ladies in line if any of them were bloggers. I would have loved to have linked to their blogs in this post.
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© 2010, Julie Meyers Pron. All rights reserved.
Love the P.S. of wondering if they were bloggers. I always thought there should be a secret sign or something we should wear (like a button) so we could know our kin out in public.
.-= Melissa´s last blog ..The Sunday Salon- Between Books =-.
I kind of have a foot in each camp -
I like the “less waste” of hand dryers, although as you said there is still the energy factor (altough I’m guessing the net imapact may be less than paper towels because of the energy required to make the paper towels, package them and ship them and then add the trash impact).
However, I like paper towels for the following reasons 1) my son (6 years old), until recently has basically refused to use the hand dryers, 2) with a paper towel I can easily clean his face (or any other part that needs some attention) and 3) I like to use the paper towel I just dried my hands with to open the door so I don’t get germs on my freshly washed hands.
For me, I’m happiest at places (usually zoos, kids museums and the like) when they have paper towels made from a high recycled content.
Twitter: justprecious
says:
Totally agree with you Julie. Highly recycled paper towels make me happiest. And you are so right about the energy used to make, transport, etc paper towels being way more than using handdryer (though there was energy used to make and transport that too, but its a static item.)
Sigh. Too much thought about this one. But its really an interesting question.
.-= Julie´s last blog ..Road trip question- Hand Dryers or Paper Towels =-.
Twitter: justprecious
says:
Melissa, wouldn’t it be so helpful to know? Throughout I was definitely thinking “I wonder if anyone else is thinking about making this conversation into a blog post?”
.-= Julie´s last blog ..Road trip question- Hand Dryers or Paper Towels =-.