Posted on 04/14/2018 6:58:30 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
While washing your hands after using the restroom is always recommended hygiene, a recent study might have you thinking twice about using a hand dryer afterward.
University of Connecticut researchers have found that hand dryers suck in bacteria from the air in the bathrooms and then spit it back out onto your hands. And when we say bacteria, we mean fecal matter from the toilet.
"Bacteria in bathrooms will come from feces, which can be aerosolized a bit when toilets, especially lidless toilets, are flushed," study author Peter Setlow told Newsweek.
In the study that was published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, "hot-air hand dryers in multiple men's and women's bathrooms in three basic science research areas in an academic health center were screened for their deposition on plates of total bacteria," and what the researchers found was that "plates exposed to hand dryer air for 30 s averaged 18 to 60 colonies/plate."
The University of Connecticut has added paper towels to all 36 of the bathrooms used in the study.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I too am an Olympian at this sport. Yes I have waited for the door to open.
A study done at the University of Connecticut ? UCONN in Storrs ?
In all fairness, it’s downwind from Hartford so there is fecal matter in EVERY air sample performed at UCONN.
They should love this in San Francisco. They’ll allow crapping in the streets and love wallowing in it apparently.
Aaah, San Fran is worried about air blowers when they have syringes and s&%*t on the sidewalks?? haha, talk about misplaced angst.
What goes in must come out.
I use toilet paper, lots of it, to dry my hands, then more to open the door. Can’t stand the cheapskates who do not supply paper towels.
‘That’s too much bacon! ‘ said no one ever.
Of course if there’s enough fecal matter in the air for that to happen you’ve already got it on your hands. Life is poo, get used to it.
I’ve always been leery of the high velocity blower dryers even without this latest news of airborne fecal pollution. I just balked at standing there at the blower, knowing that it was blasting germs and corruption off the floor and circulating it. while I stood there inhaling it.
I spent most of the winter at the hospital as a visitor. I probably went to every bathroom in the place many times. Never saw an air dryer. They must know something.
Me, too. All of that.
While toilet paper is unsuitable for hand drying, the toilet seat covers in most restrooms are absorbent enough to serve quite well as substitute paper towels.
Of course they are mounted right next to the source of the contamination, so maybe we need a new study.
I use public restrooms multiple times every day. I am not aware of ever getting ill from this. I have few health issues in general. I get a cold every couple of years. I get the flu every six or seven years. I take normal precautions such as washing my hands well and frequently, and drying with whatever is available, although I prefer paper towels. I know about all the awful invisible stuff that is out there waiting to get me, but I find it best not to dwell in it too much. Plenty of people, past and present, live under much, much, much less sanitary conditions than I do. Of couse, plenty of them get wiped out but those living conditions, but plenty of them don’t.
Now I know where I got that stomach bug last week - theater rest room.
Betcha anything !
Bet you’re right. I never use those dryers. (For me, it’s always been about the noise.) I walk out of the restroom and wave my hands around. Looks weird, but...
how about when you flush or the toilet self flushes and you are in the public stall fixing your clothes? do you breath in at all during that time?
I read many years ago its been shown particles can be dispersed up to 6 ft away when a toilet flushes.
People keep all sorts of stuff right above or beside toilets on bathroom counters and don’t bother shutting the lid. They don’t seem to realize toilets come with lids for a reason. I think public ones should have lids too.
Always preferred using paper towels.
Hoax.
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