Physics 1 0 1
Your favorite newspaper
Are electrical hand dryers more
energy efficient than paper towels?
Paper towels and electrical hand dryers both waste energy in endless
ways, but on the long run hand dryers are better for the environment.
Camila Bustamante
May 2014
The main reason why this is so is because hand dryers are set to last around 7-10 years,
while paper towels have a huge variety being produced every day. This means that the hand
dryers are produced and transported to the customers in a way less frequent manner than the
amount of paper towels being manufactured which are taken to their customers daily. The
electrical hand dryers in any community have an environmental effect because they require
energy to work when the applied force from a human body turns the button of the dryer on,
because a current begins to flow within the machine. When the air is being released, a small
electric motor begins to spin in order to generate more air. In our FDR community, we equally use
both hand dryers and paper towels after washing our hands. Even though electrical hand dryers
require more energy than paper towels at the moment of their function, on the long run, paper
towels end up being way less energy efficient than the hand dryers.
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Dryers
Both of these have some
environmental cost, but if you were looking
for a greener way to dry your hands, using
electrical hand dryers would definitely be
the best choice. The hand dryers we use at
FDR use 2.3 kilowatts per 30 second-drying
time. If one would dry their hands for 30
seconds and 3 times a week for a year, they
would use around 19.71 kilowatt-hours of
electricity, which leads to approximately
26.61 carbon dioxide emissions released.
Recently, there has been a new generation
of hand dryers, which are said to be more
efficient because less drying-time is
required, but if one thinks this out, in order
to make the drying time shorter they must
use more energy; the energy is made with
coal, which releases carbon, so more carbon
dioxide will be released, resulting as
unhealthy for our environments.
Paper Towels
Benefits & Limitations
When comparing the energy efficiency of paper towels vs. hand dryers, there are two
factors that interact: environmental and economic. Like mentioned above, a lot of energy is
wasted when producing both hand dryers and paper towels like the factory emissions,
transportation, and machinery used, but the difference is that paper towels must be produced
more often, so all of this is used more than it would with hand dryers, because of how much
longer they last. Not just do they significantly affect the environment, but these also have an
economic impact. In our school, I went to the purchasing office to collect data on how much
paper towel the school consumes. We buy 10,368 packs of 80 towels each year, which cost
around 3$, which would be around 31,104$ wasted on paper towels per year. With hand
dryers, since each costs approximately 45$, we wouldnt waste as much because after
checking each bathroom in secondary school I counted about 22 dryers, and these last for
around 7-10 years, so we dont waste more than 990$ a year.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACT
Paper towels
However, if you compare the
complications of the hand dryers to those of
the paper towels, they are insignificant,
because of all the variation in how paper
towels are produced. What come to appear as
major damage are the fossil fuels, which are
used for the machinery and transportation of
logs to make the paper towels. Energy is also
expended on the pulping process and the
transportation of the towels, which could emit
many harmful pollutants into our environment.
. Dryers also must be transported, but in a less
frequent manner because of how much a hand
dryer can last in comparison to the paper
towels. After consulting with the schools
professionals, it was said that in 2013, the FDR
community has consumed a total of 829,440
paper towels to dry their hands. There is a
great majority of energy required in the entire
process of the manufacturing of the paper
towels, while dryers require most of their
energy when at use.
May 2014
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It is estimated that hand dryers use 5% less energy than paper towels in
the first year, and 20% less over five years. With this statement it is evident
that electrical hand dryers tend to be way more energy efficient than paper
towels. Though hand dryers might require a lot of energy for their use, the
overall process that paper towels go through is less energy efficient than the
dryers. In my opinion, people should become aware of this because even with
recycled paper towels, a huge amount of energy is being wasted. As a
community we would be saving much more energy, doing a big favor for the
environment, and the amount of money expended on hand drying material
would decrease significantly if Colegio Franklin D. Roosevelt would focus on
hand dryers being the main drying source on campus.
FDR Money Wasted on
Hand Drying Material
Electrical Hand Dryers
Paper Towels
LOOK below for infographic
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Works Cited
"Bybell 2.4kW Classic Dryer." Bybell. Bybell, n.d. Web. 6 May 2014.
<[Link]
"Electric Hand Dryers Vs. Paper Towels." Slate. The Root, n.d. Web. 6 May 2014.
<[Link]
tric_hand_dryers_vs_paper_towels.html>.
"Hand Dryer." Wikipedia. Wikimedia, n.d. Web. 6 May 2014.
<[Link]
"MRSA in Care Homes." Cairn. Yoomee, n.d. Web. 6 May 2014.
<[Link]