For four years, the hand dryers in Keene State have been sitting dormant in favor of paper towel dispensers.
There are currently no operating hand dryers on campus, according to Assistant Director of Facilities Services Colin Burdick. He said shutting down the dryers was one of the health safety measures implemented during the pandemic spread of the COVID-19 virus.
“I think it was just to reduce the spread of germs, but it also pushed us to maybe install some paper towel dispensers where there weren’t, or deploy some more trash cans to help ease the burden of paper towels being used,” Burdick said. “Since the pandemic ended, we just never turned them back on.”
Burdick said he thinks people have gotten used to the paper towel dispensers, but that work orders have come in recently to potentially turn hand dryers back on. He added that a class in the TDS Center has expressed interest in conducting a study on how sanitary hand dryers are.
“Apparently paper towels tend to be the more sanitary solution, especially with the touchless ones,” Burdick said. “With the air dryers, they’re taking air from inside the space. What’s the air in the space? The bathroom air. So is it really sanitary?”
Sustainability Coordinator Kate Witte said the debate between paper towel dispensers and hand dryers can go either way depending on how sustainably either product is made and used.
“At this point, I’m not really sure. I think there’s waste either way,” Witte said. “With paper towels, if … you’re sourcing from 100% recycled [paper], that would be a different story. I don’t think that’s the case right now.”
Witte said the custodial company the college contracts with, C&W Services, has been willing to collaborate with the sustainability office on requests for greener products, including low-toxin cleaning products and paper towels sourced partially from recycled paper.
Witte also added her thoughts on hand dryers.
“With hand dryers, I’m not sure what their electrical footprint is,” Witte said. “Because then the electricity we’re producing is still coming from Eversource … One way or another, it’s still coming from fossil fuels.”
One goal Witte stated was waste reduction. The debate between paper towels and hand dryers becomes skewed when towels are being used in evidently wasteful ways, she said.
“How many paper towels do you really need to dry your hands?” Witte said.
Another goal Witte outlined as important was balancing sustainability with cost efficiency.
“We obviously don’t want to go broke buying sustainable products,” Witte said. “There must be a balance between what the college can afford to purchase and being as environmentally conscious as it can.”
Junior and Eco-Reps President Chloe March said in many cases, sustainable products and processes can be more cost-effective than their more damaging counterparts.
“Every time you dump a dumpster into a landfill, it costs money, but it’s less for recycling and it’s less for compost by weight and cost,” March said. “So that’s a sustainable measure and it’s better for the planet, better for people and it’s way less expensive … and then you reinvest those [savings] into things that cost more money like solar panels or electric vehicle charging.”
March said the example of recycling and composting could connect with other cases like using efficient electricity for hand dryers, adding it could be possible to pursue options that are both cheap and sustainable.
Additionally, March said paper towels, while theoretically recyclable, pose their own problems.
“What happens when you throw [paper towels] away?” March said. “Is that going into the dumpsters or is that being recycled? [There could be] gum or tissues going into that, so it’s probably going to be trash, so that’s what we need to consider too.”
Charlotte King can be contacted at
cking@kscequinox.com
