Study: bathroom hand-dryers just spray germs everywhere
April 14, 2018
by Ned Dymoke
Rarely does a Big Think article start with 'in bathroom news...' but here goes: in bathroom news, a study has confirmed what most of us have suspected. Those electronic hand dryers in public bathrooms basically just recirculate extremely dirty air.
They actually do worse than that: they filter dirty air in the machine, and once that filter gets full enough—which, considering many are in windowless bathrooms, is pretty quickly—it just sprays dirty poo-air all over your hands. Not to gross you out, but the mist of poo-air that hangs above the toilet can be spread about 6m—or 20ft—from the toilet every time it's flushed. Overwhelmingly, you have little chance of getting sick directly from this *cough* poo-mist directly, but things like the common cold and even staphylococcus (the virus behind food poisoning) hang out in bathrooms for a lot longer than you'd thing. So washing your hands is tantamount to not getting sick.
http://bigthink.com/news/study-bathroom-hand-dryers-basically-just-spray-germs-everywhere
