Solar Powered Hand Dryers

First of all I am sure most people don't really care how they dry their hands in a public restroom.

Unfortunately, I am one of the folks who at least thinks about which is better, paper towels or electric hand dryers.

In doing my research, I found I am certainly not the only person who thinks about and asks about this question as there have many people who studied the question and posted a number of articles and studies. The best article I found on the question basically summarizes that overall electric hand dryers are a little better then paper towels and the new high efficiency hand dryers are even better.

The studies I saw also indicated that both were equally effective in terms of hygiene.

So if both are hygienic and the environmental impacts are not significant enough, does it really matter. My perspective is yes it does matter if high efficient hand dryers are better now and new technology keeps making them better for the environment we should encourage this trend.

With that said, we should not only push for more efficient (they become more efficient because they dry your hands faster) hand dryers but push for efficient power sources that run them. If we can move away from coal generated electricity to renewable energy the scales are really tipped. So be on the lookout for the first solar powered hand dryer to appear in a public restroom near you.