Sometimes I feel, the term evolution is misused. We mistake revolutionizing for evolution, and as the dictionary explains former is changing something radically whereas the latter represents growth, progress, betterment. Over the course of time, there have been many examples, that prove that. But today I want to talk about something that concerns everybody – Hygiene. This little word here is a worrying factor for many, and personal hygiene can be easily threatened in public areas especially restrooms. Hence the concept of washrooms has been through its fair share of evolution & revolution. Nowadays, modern era washrooms are equipped with – sensory taps, liquid soap through one-touch dispensers, and jet air hand dryers. All these are based on the fact that hands most easily pick up and spread germs, especially when damp. So the least amount of touch involved represented sanitation and safety.
But two researches have shown this to be an illusion. Yes, our trusted hot air hand-dryers that we relied upon to keep our hands clean have been shown to do the opposite. One among them was a study conducted by scientists at the University of Leeds, where over a 12 week period they observed 2 washrooms each in a hospital located in Uk, France, and Italy. They offered only 1 mode of hand drying (paper towels or hand-dryers) in each washroom for 4 weeks and after a gap switched the mode and repeated the same a third time. Samples for testing were collected from surfaces, air, floor during the gap of 2 weeks. After these were analysed they found that the number of pathogens increased many-folds when the jet air dryers were in use.
In another study, researchers from University of Connecticut exposed agar plate (round slides that contain some agar {jelly like substance} to grow microorganism) in 36 restrooms of 3 buildings to jet dryers for a mere of 30 sec and compared those to the ones that were allowed to dry naturally. The result was that when agar plates were allowed to dry naturally there were only about 6 bacterial colonies found, whereas the same number went up to between 24 to 60 colonies on the jet dried plates. On one it went as high as 254.
You may be wondering as to how this happens, the thing is that when people do not wash their hands properly then the microbes on their hands when exposed to dryers are converted into aerosols that travels via the air and settles on surfaces including dryer and can be easily transferred to other people. As icky as it may sound, it’s what the researches reflect.
Although it needs to be noted that the dryers auto-fitted with HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) reduced the number of colonies by up to 70% but cannot guarantee 100%. And the colonies mostly found enterobacteria, e-Coli, staphylococcus aureus which in healthy people would not cause a problem. But places like hospitals, patients may suffer from adverse effects.
So in conclusion, paper towels, when disposed of correctly, came out to be safer to contain the germs, and provide maximum amounts of hygiene.
Another thing we have revolutionized yet it is not evolutionary.