Restroom Hygiene: Why Hand Dryers Are Bad for Cold and Flu!

 

With the season of cold and flu at its height, the human population is at the highest risk of catching the most dreaded germs of cold and flu. The season on its full swing, is the most favorable time of the year for germs to multiply and spread at a faster pace. A special care of personal hygiene and restroom hygiene, thus, is in desperate need of the moment. The most important thing to keep in mind is that anything that’s been touched by a number of hands, such as: doorknobs, stair railings, etc., could possibly be transferring germs. Therefore, the first thing that should be done before eating or after touching anything that may contain germs, is to wash your hands. It is very crucial to wash your hands at any moment of leisure and definitely before eating anything. These germs are contagious and can easily travel from one body to another with simple touches.
Hands can be washed by using any or all of the things mentioned below:

• Water.
• Soap and water.
• Alcohol based hand sanitizer.

A person should always wash hands before:

• They take their lunch.
• They touch their face, nose, mouth, or eyes.
• They eat or prepare food.

As much as washing your hands is necessary, so is drying them properly. You could always dry them with a towel when you are at home, as the towels at our own houses are often clean. The problem arises when the question comes to drying them after washing at your office restrooms or public places. Hands washed at some public places could be dried in any of the following ways:

• Hand dryers
• Paper towels

It is said that people prefer using disposable paper towels over hand dryers, as hand dryers are more prone to spreading germs of cold and flu than paper towels. Reason being, is that studies have proven that hand dryers have the capacity of increasing the count of germs on the palm of your hands rather than decreasing them. Paper towels, however, have been doing just the opposite.

The studies have shown the following results:

• Using a warm air dryer increased the number of germs on an average to about 254% on the palms and about 194% on the finger pads.
• A jet air dryer increased the number of bacteria count by 42% on finger pads and about 15% on the palms.
• A paper towel on the other hand, if used to dry your hands, reduced the bacteria count by about 77% on the palms and by about 76% on the finger pads.
• Use of air dryers was responsible for spreading germs in a perimeter of around 2 meters from the place of use, thus exposing everyone in that area to the germs on the hands of the user.
• Paper towels showed no such results of spreading the germs.

Studies have proved that a healthy work environment could not be created and cold and flu could not be prevented, by just following some restroom cleanliness rules. There must also be a good knowledge of restroom accessories to be used.

Stathakis, an ISSA CIMS-GB certified janitorial company, has been providing all the cleaning and janitorial services or business cleaning services, that are needed to keep one away from cold and flu in this season of high alert.