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Medicine Education Science Technology

Dyson Airblades 'Spread Germs 1,300 Times More Than Paper Towels' (telegraph.co.uk) 434

Posted by BeauHD from the achoo-cough-cough dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The Journal of Applied Microbiology published a report claiming Dyson Airblade hand-driers spread 60 times more germs than standard air dryers, and 1,300 times more than standard paper towels. The researchers from University of Westminster conducted their research by dipping their hands in water containing a harmless virus. Then, they dried their hands with either a Dyson Airblade, a standard hot-air dryer, or a paper towel. Their research shows the Dyson drier's 430mph blasts of air are capable of spreading viruses up to 3 meters across a bathroom. Typical driers spread viruses up to 75cm (about 2.5ft), and the hand towels 25cm (less than 1ft).
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Dyson Airblades 'Spread Germs 1,300 Times More Than Paper Towels' More

Dyson Airblades 'Spread Germs 1,300 Times More Than Paper Towels'

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  • Yes, but it's a Dyson (Score:5, Funny)

    by Frosty Piss ( 770223 ) * on Thursday April 14, 2016 @05:35PM (#51911207)

    Yes, but it's a Dyson which means it cost twice what any other solution cost, so it's go to be good, right?

    • Re: Yes, but it's a Dyson (Score:4, Insightful)

      by p4ul13 ( 560810 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @06:02PM (#51911453) Homepage
      Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck, I hate the air blades. I knew they had to be germ machines. Just try to use one without touching the damn sides. Hate hate hate them!

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck, I hate the air blades. I knew they had to be germ machines

        No, you wanted them to be because you don't like them. That your desire happens to have overlapped with reality does not mean that you "knew" anything. We know this because...

        Just try to use one without touching the damn sides

        I have, and it's easy. I don't think I've ever touched any part of the machine at all. But anyway, the reason they spread more germs is because they blow them further around a room, which has nothing to do w

      • Screw touching the sides, they blow more air, at higher velocities, than the traditional hand blowers we already knew were worse than paper towels. You're having those germs thrown at your face by the thing, not rubbed into your hands.

      • Re: Yes, but it's a Dyson (Score:5, Informative)

        by Barsteward ( 969998 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:01AM (#51913463)
        its all bollox. if you've washed your hands properly there will be no germs to spread.

    • Re:Yes, but it's a Dyson (Score:5, Funny)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @06:18PM (#51911581)

      Well most of the reviews on Dyson is that their products either sucks or blows.

    • Re:Yes, but it's a Dyson (Score:5, Funny)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @06:26PM (#51911637) Journal

      Dyson Airblades, or as microbiologists like to call the, Dyson Germ Cannons

      • Ahem.

        Germ Dispersal Units. Or GDUs, if you prefer.

      • Re:Yes, but it's a Dyson (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Xest ( 935314 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @04:05AM (#51913601)

        I've always found them shit anyway. The airblade doesn't make sense, as it seems to blow horizontally, creating an air wall that basically pushes any water on your hand either side of the air wall, and as you move up and down, moves the water up and down.

        To me, what would've always made more sense would've been to:

        a) Have the air aim downwards to push the water down off your hands

        b) Move your hands into position from the side, rather than above

        Moving hands in from above just pushes the water up your arm, moving your hands in from the side and blowing down would push it off your hand.

        So yes, right now all they really are is germ cannons that don't actually dry your hands particularly effectively - in fact, I find a good classic powerful (some are shit and too weak) hand dryer to be much better because at least they blast downwards, which because we live in a world with gravity, is kind of more fucking useful than creating a wall that just pushes water up your arm.

        But one of the biggest sanitation problems for germ transfer in toilets is door handles. Rather than buying an expensive airblade, maybe places should invest in doors that open automatically with sensors because right now everyone washes their hands and dries them with an expensive no-touch hand dryer like the dyson, and then proceeds to put their hand on the door handle to exit the washrooms only to pick up all the germs that that one scratty bastard who doesn't wash his hands after handling his dick left there.

    • Re:Yes, but it's a Dyson (Score:5, Funny)

      by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @07:07PM (#51911895)

      And this is the company that Trump wants to entrust with building a wall around the solar system to keep out aliens?

  • On the other hand... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sconeu ( 64226 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @05:38PM (#51911229) Homepage Journal

    It actually gets my hands dry, unlike traditional air dryers ("press button, wipe hands on pants").

  • But... But... It's the "world's most hygienic hand dryer!" It says it right on the thing!

  • I dunno about you... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by richy freeway ( 623503 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @05:41PM (#51911263)

    But I tend to wash my hands instead of dunking them in vats of bacteria before drying them, whichever method of drying I use.

    • Washing your hands doesn't remove all the bacteria and viruses. Unless you dip your hand in an alcohol based lotion that kills germs, then you spread dead germs with the Dyson hand dryer. Most industrial soap lotions found in public WC do not kill germs. They help to dissolve dirt on your hands in water, at most.
    • I'm likewise confused. Am I failing to observe a massive contingent of people that choose not to wash their hands but nonetheless place their hands in the dryer anyway? Further, why do I care if the people that opt to not wash their hands pick up germs in addition to the feces they just smeared on the bathroom door from the people that chose to dry unwashed hands.
      • What about the pool of water at the bottom of the Dyson dryers? Some of that water gets blown around. That water must contain lots of bacteria.

        • Re:I dunno about you... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Nethemas the Great ( 909900 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @07:08PM (#51911901)

          Does it get sucked up from the floor and onto my hands? Is there evidence that it atomizes and is breathable? The Dyson's (or any other hand dryer) part in the water on the floor is no different than what happens after someone shakes their hands off following washing (rinsing) their hands.

          As far as I can tell this is a purposely misleading study intended to create FUD and boost paper towel sales. This study demonstrates that if you place wet, dirty hands into the dryer (who does that?), that dirt (germs) will be blown off your hands and splatter up to 3m away. It does not show that the Dyson produces atomized water particles containing germs in the air. Nor does it show that the hands of the person whom just washed and dried them are more ladened with germs than the other methods. This study would be a concern if you planned on licking the bathroom floor and adjacent wall space. That not really my hobby interest.

          • Does it get sucked up from the floor and onto my hands?

            My own unscientific observations show that it gets blown around. Does it get atomized such that it could be breathed in? I don't know, but I think that it is a significant concern that someone should investigate.

  • You can feel the water on your face (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hawguy ( 1600213 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @05:42PM (#51911267)

    Typically when the dryer starts up, I can feel a fine spray of water hit me in the face. I avoid these dryers now, even if it means using my pant legs to dry my hands.

    At least the old fashioned blow dryers that take forever to dry your hands don't direct a spray of water into your face.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Mitsubishi make a similar device, but the angle of the air jets stops the upward spray, and they ramp up instead of going to 100% instantly.

    • I avoid these dryers now, even if it means using my pant legs to dry my hands.

      Or, you can just do like me and dry your hands on someone else's pant leg.

    • They have this at one of the gym locations I go to. There's always a puddle of water on the floor right below the thing.

      Guess I'm bringing a hand towel with me from home from now on, in addtion to the gym towel I usually bring. It's got to be at least as 'green' to wash and re-use a hand towel as it is to use a blowing-air hand dryer.

  • I'ts been called the world's worst urinal in jest (Score:5, Funny)

    by enjar ( 249223 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @05:43PM (#51911277) Homepage

    Evidently, that's not a joke any longer. As James Dyson says,

    "Like everyone we get frustrated by products that don’t work properly. As design engineers we do something about it."

  • Virus-laden water (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14, 2016 @05:45PM (#51911291)

    Shouldn't the premise for testing hand dryers be that the hands are washed with soap and are "clean" but wet? If we taint the water itself and measure how far that spreads, is that really a realistic test of how hygienic the dryer is?

    • Re:Virus-laden water (Score:5, Informative)

      by Andreas Mayer ( 1486091 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @06:03PM (#51911467) Homepage

      If we taint the water itself and measure how far that spreads, is that really a realistic test of how hygienic the dryer is?

      No, it's not. But it makes for a better headline.

    • Re:Virus-laden water (Score:4, Insightful)

      by twotacocombo ( 1529393 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @06:12PM (#51911531)

      Shouldn't the premise for testing hand dryers be that the hands are washed with soap and are "clean" but wet? If we taint the water itself and measure how far that spreads, is that really a realistic test of how hygienic the dryer is?

      Last time I checked, these were usually installed in bathrooms, which are far from sterile laboratory conditions. The machine itself may be hygienic if you only dried RO/DI water off a microscope slide while holding it with tongs fresh from autoclave while wearing a hazmat suit, but lets be honest.. most people come straight from the shitter, run a little bit of water on their hands and lather soap just long enough to keep up appearances. Many people don't even use soap; the chlorine in water will get it, right? So, it'd be more realistic to test these after running your hands down your ass crack than with "clean" hands, and these are the conditions that show the true colors of the drying method in question.

      tl;dr

      a Prius may get "up to" 58 MPG, but here in the real world...

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Quirkz ( 1206400 )

        a Prius may get "up to" 58 MPG, but here in the real world...

        You just reminded me of an ad I recently got saying "Save up to $800 on items starting at $398". There's a point where that technically-legal wording gets kind of ridiculous, because I'm sure they weren't going to pay me to take any of their products.

    • You can assume the hands were rinsed of the person is using a drier, but you can't assume they used soap.

    • The typical person in a restroom wants to get out quickly. Thoroughly washing hands takes far too long - they probably had a quick rub with soap and a run under the tap, no more.

    • The premise is to make people feel better. The reality is that unless you soap your hands for 2 minutes and 30 seconds every single time you are doing next to nothing. And none of that pre foamed soap, it does nothing to reduce the waters surface tension but it does save a lot of money on soap because no one is really using any.

      You are literally covered in bacteria, viruses and other living things. They cover every square inch of your skin, they are on everything you touch and they are even all throughout y

  • That is why I go to stall and pre open door so I can grab some toilet paper to dry my hands.

  • Tim, the Toolman's" theory of "More Power" seems to have failed in this case.

  • "Messiest. Urinal. Ever." (Score:3)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @05:47PM (#51911309) Homepage Journal
    IIRC, The Mythbusters a couple years ago tested the efficacy of air hand dryers versus paper towels, and found that paper towels were more effective and more hygienic.

  • You mean those jet-powered hand dryers that make so much noise that they give you tinnitus?

    I hate those!

  • My anecdotal evidence has shown that men don't wash their hands often after doing their thing. That said, perhaps Dyson's numbers are much better than NOT washing your hands and using either paper or air.

    • I called a friend on not washing his hands. His reply was "In the Navy they teach us not to piss on our fingers".

  • Sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @05:52PM (#51911359) Homepage

    Own one for two seconds and I defy you not to realise this.

    See that damp stain on the wall underneath? And the puddle on the floor? Yeah, you washed your hands about five times, and it looks like you've been having water fights in front of the thing.

    And then there was me who was always told that, actually, washing your hands (the process of wetting them) does little anyway. It's the drying / wiping that actually scrapes the crap off. Otherwise you literally just have a slightly damper environment for the bacteria on your hands anyway.

    There's a reason that surgeons "scrub" up. It has little to do with the water itself, which just acts as a lubricant to assist the soap (which sticks to dirt and water) in sticking to the dirt and then providing a way to know where you've washed and to remove those parts that might have captured the dirt. It's the wiping / scrubbing / vigorous rub-down that actually removes that crap from you (and onto the floor / towel / soap / sink, obviously).

    Like the Romans - who bathed in oil and then scraped it off, knowing the OIL took the dirt with it, not that smelling like a pizza for the rest of the day actually did anything in itself.

    The reason we have hand-driers is because such scrubbing in public is considered... "wrong" somehow. You can't share a towel without transfer of bacteria, and people think individual paper towel is somehow killing the planet. Like blowing your nose - don't put it in a handkerchief and carry it around with you. Wipe it off on a tissue and throw the fucking thing away.

    But, to be honest, it barely matters. Bacteria don't last long in those kinds of environments so long as they're cleaned occasionally, you can't really avoid spreading them anyway (it's not a question of some precisely contained particles - watch one of the slow-mo videos of a sneeze, it doesn't matter what you do it's like someone sneezing a handful of flour - it goes fecking everywhere, but, yes, put your hand up because it does stop quite a lot of your snot landing on someone else), and gadgets like this are quick and convenient which means more people might bother to wash their hands just to try it out.

    But if you ever used one of these, I defy you to not have seen the crap and water on the floor underneath and around it that gets blasted off everyone else's hands.

    Like all things Dyson (and Apple), half-decent idea, pretty aesthetics, fucking terrible design, but add a premium and be different and people buy it.

    • Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14, 2016 @06:22PM (#51911603)

      Drying your hands with a towel of any kind isn't what cleans your hands.

      Soap binds to the dirt AND to water. When you wash your hands the soap is effectively gluing the dirt to the water and when you rinse that water away you rinse away the dirt too.

      Washing your hands with soap and water and doing a decent job of rubbing/lathering your hands together (i.e. do it for 20 seconds or so and hit all parts of your hand) is all that is required for good sanitation in most cases. Most people don't wash their hands properly.

      You only need to 'scrub' with a brush or other implement if you need your hands _extremely_ clean or you have material on them that is not readily emulsified by soap & water. Unless you are a surgeon, you don't need your hands to be _that_ clean. You have an immune system for a reason. Give it something to do so it doesn't get bored and turn on you (allergies).

    • people think individual paper towel is somehow killing the planet. Like blowing your nose - don't put it in a handkerchief and carry it around with you. Wipe it off on a tissue and throw the fucking thing away.

      I always get a kick out of those people. They may have have a leg to stand on at one point in time but now the paper used to make paper towels and other paper products come from tree farms; some of which use a specially bred type of tree that grows unusually fast compared to wild trees. One could even argue that tree farms offset the carbon dioxide used to harvest the trees compared to using electricity to dry your hands off. Tree farms can also have fringe benefit of providing a refuge for wildlife in betw

    • Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rob Bos ( 3399 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @08:33PM (#51912321) Homepage

      CDC recommends you sneeze/cough into your elbow. Less opportunity to touch something with your germy hands.

  • Paid for study (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14, 2016 @05:53PM (#51911369)

    One of the authors of the study works for Kimberly Clark, omnipresent maker of paper towels. How convenient.

  • For the next study... (Score:3)

    by Marginal Coward ( 3557951 ) on Thursday April 14, 2016 @06:00PM (#51911437)

    For the next study, I recommend they compare the decibels of the Dyson Airblade dryer, as experienced by the user, to the decibels of a jet engine on the tarmac, as experienced by a baggage handler wearing ear plugs.

    I'm betting the dryer would win.

  • Experimental setup:

    1. 1. Dip your hands in solution containing the virus.
    2. 2. Use either blower or hand towel to dry your hands.
    3. 3. See how far from your current position you can find the virus. Not surprisingly the powerful blower spread the virus more.

    Real world equivalent of the experimental setup:

    1. 1. Shit on your hands
    2. 2. Use towel or blower to "clean" you hands.

    Actual bathroom operation:

    1. 1. Wash your hands with soap and water to remove germs.
    2. 2. Dry your clean hands with either towel or a blower.

    Does anyone

    • Washing your hands with soap and water doesn't remove the germs. It removes some of the oils on your hands that harbor the germs. Unless you're going to use a sanitizing solution before drying your hands, those germs will still be there.

    • Actual bathroom operation:
      1. Quickly run your hand under some water with a little soap, because you want to be finished as quickly as possible.
      2. Mop up the water off your hands.

  • The Mythbusters already confirmed that air powered had drying spread germs more than paper.

  • I've been saying this for years. I refuse to use any sort of "germ blowing" device in the bathroom. If there are no paper towels... i simply just dry my hands on my pants or move on with slightly moist hands. Only takes a couple of minutes for them to dry anyway...

  • Well, yes, paper towels might be more effective and more hygenic, but without Dyson Airblades or those obnoxious XLerator blow-dryers, how are we expected to damage our hearing in the restroom? If we don't have a 95-decibel mini-jet-engine firing up every few seconds in a small room covered in hard, echoing surfaces, we'll pretty much have to stick actual spikes in our ears to get the same result.

  • Sure blowers may blast bacteria around and paper towels may already have bacteria on them. But how dangerous is this ? Billions of years of evolution has given us an immune system that deals with what is found in the environment., if now we would have died out centuries ago. I do agree that we are living in more densely populated communities and so germ control is more important than it was in times past; but I suspect that most of that happens through the guys who don't wash their hands after going to the

  • Paper towels beat air blowers and air blades in cleanliness?

    Sometimes the old ways are better than the new ways.

  • I thought the point of the dryer was to dry the rinse water off of your hands after you thoroughly wash them, eliminating most of the pathogens.

    That said, the problem here isn't the dryer. It's the idoits who don't know how to wash their hands. Perhaps in a hospital, we could make smart sinks that detect when you haven't washed your hands thoroughly enough and then curse at you or something... maybe the "red alert" sound. If it's obnoxious enough to get the attention of others in the room, then people will

  • So Dyson says: "Independent research shows that before they even reach the washroom, paper towels can contain large communities of culturable bacteria."

    Yes, but those bacteria aren't likely to cause disease in humans. As I understand it, infectious viruses don't survive for long periods of time on dry surfaces, like paper towels. If one person having a cold or the flu uses a Dyson dryer, he aerosolizes the virus into tiny droplets hanging about in the air and splashing about on the doorknob. That's where th

  • There's a moral to this story (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Thursday April 14, 2016 @09:00PM (#51912453)
    As a doctor I could suggest washing your hands with soap and water instead of virus and water. The former is the approved method whereas the latter is a little to new and usually frowned upon.

  • Dyson airblades have ALWAYS been awful (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AbRASiON ( 589899 ) * on Friday April 15, 2016 @12:51AM (#51913227) Journal

    I first encountered these idiot things in my first overseas trip to London and Paris back in 2010 at many shopping centres and airports.

    The stupid goddamn things have a very small slit to put your hands in, where the air is coming rapidly on to your hands in a very tight line / wave of air.
    The problem is in the design that you put your hands inside this small gap and it's really bloody easy for your palms or back of your hand or your shirt to easily touch the top or bottom of the opening.
    https://www.thememo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/dyson-airblade.jpg [thememo.com]
    It's simply too small a space to put your hands. Sure if you're careful you're fine but it reminded me of playing the old electronic board game 'operation' trying to not touch the sides.

    I realise Mythbusters seemed to confirm that an air dryer IS worse than paper towel for germs, but I still prefer a combination of both (towel then dryer) but I'd take a regular hand dryer any day over the Dyson, stupid bloody thing.

  • Wait a minute now... So what? (Score:3)

    by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @07:54AM (#51914161)
    Who the hell washes their hands with viruses instead of soap? If you just washed your hands, what are you going to spread? If the water is so bacteria-laden that you're going to spread them even after using soap, you and everyone else in the room have a lot more to worry about.

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