Mythbusters did a segment that showed the air dryers are more likely to spread germs. So it's just awful all around
Environmental Health Officer here... I had a classmate who did a study on this, specifically the Dyson-type where you stick your hands in downwards.
Next time, take a look at what's there in the 2mm gap on the bottom inside where the water, etc. collects, and where the forced air blows all that material. Remember to not breathe.
There's a reason why we direct food businesses to use paper towels in the kitchen, not hand dryers. Also, because ain't nobody got time to properly wash their hands for 30 seconds and then stand there completely drying their hands when they have 20+ chits on the go.
Edit: Forgot to mention, the majority of people don't know how to wash their hands properly, especially under the nails (both men and women). They've just used the hand dryer. Now you use the hand dryer. Multiply that by how many days it is before these things actually get cleaned and sanitised only to be contaminated again by the first user until the next clean and sanitise, if ever. Humans are filthy. 💀
If they get cleaned and sanitized.
I highly doubt they do. They probably just get tested and tagged, and maybe to make sure the filters are cleaned/replaced. Otherwise, I really don't know. Do the daily cleaners even wipe those down? I've more often seen people cleaning the traffic lights (3 times in my entire life) than I see anyone go near a hand dryer with a cloth (none).
There's a reason they removed them all in my country during covid and they never came back.
Do you guys still have them?
Hey I'm an athlete but these foot pull doors are still extremely difficult. It strains your calf muscles, your hamstrings, your kegels, and your core. Opening heavy restroom doors with this spiky foot pull is not easy or fun or comfortable at all.
Our office has these and it's always been p. easy to open them. No idea why there is a discrepancy. Maybe something about the balance of the door?
Turns out businesses don’t care about cleanliness or your safety beyond the point where it might affect their bottom line and just install touchless sinks and hand dryers to save money on water and paper towels
Using wads of paper towel and leaving the tap open waste resources. This is a prime example where being economical equates to being ecological.
i work in a business with unlimited access to paper towels, it saddens me how much i have to throw away unused ones
Any handle or surface in public areas, assume the person that handled it before you had just finished taking a monster shit and skipped the handwashing before rubbing their pathogen-factories all over it. Photo in OP, there's not really a good option, so you're in damage control mode... check for toilet seat liners that some public restrooms stock and grab one of them? At least that's something the other people handle before getting shit all over their hands.
One of the nastiest assignments I've had working in a hospital was 'Handwashing Monitor'. And let me tell you, I've debrided infected wounds; wiped maggots out of some fucker's pannus; cleaned up every bodily fluid our bodies are capable of cranking out from the floor, walls, and sometimes ceiling; helped amputate limbs that were literally rotten to the bone, and wiped a cumulative mile or two of ass crack...
...apply to nursing school today!!...
...but anyway, Handwashing Monitor. It is beyond appalling the number of patients, visitors, techs, nurses, doctors, housekeepers, you name it... who'd go in and out of patient rooms without performing hand hygiene; or they'd wash their hands, but for like half a second; or not use soap; or turn the faucet on with their grimy-ass hands, do a thorough handwash, then immediately contaminate themselves by grabbing that same dirty-ass faucet with their bare hands to turn it off. The thing that made that position take the crown above all the other examples I gave in the previous paragraph was the realization that the community who is THE single most painfully aware of pathogens and their origins / mechanism of spreading... can't even wash their fucking hands!
...which brings us back to my opening sentence: it's not advice on sheer ick factor, but a reasonable assumption based on directly observed evidence.
And no, this wasn't just a particularly icky hospital: I've worked in multiple states for multiple organizations/facilities, and to this day get eye-rolls for asking people to re-wash or even first-wash their hands.
We nasty. Be a germaphobe. End rant.
Keep fighting the good fight. Many years married to a germ conscious nurse, and I think I have a pretty good routine now but still feel like borderline OCD and go through a gallon of hand soap a month.
Thanks, Murse. TIL
Pannus is an abnormal layer of tissue that can form in various parts of the body, often associated with conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, where it can damage joints.
Pannus? I'm talking about the 'apron' of abdominal tissue that hangs in front of morbidly obese people. Under those things there's often a lot of skin breakdown and infection - and in one of my patients, maggot infestation - because it becomes a progressively harder place to keep clean as they pack on more weight, then come to the ER once it looks like something from a zombie movie.
Side note for my larger friends reading this: don't neglect those nooks and crannies when performing hygiene! Dry it thoroughly, and keep it dry with powder or by keeping a layer of fabric in between areas with a fold so it's not skin-on-skin. Often those first stages of an infection aren't painful or anything, so by the time it's actually bugging you, it's BAD! Cleaning it can be tricky if your reach is limited, but you can get creative with it - one of my patients would bring a clean towel into the shower, soak it with soapy water, and kinda 'floss' into those folds. Dude was pushing 500 lbs, but never had skin issues. Lots of other issues, but he had hygiene down to a science.
I thought that was their way of saying "wiped maggots out of some fucker's penis" and cringed hard.
Obviously it doesn't work on these types of doors, but I really liked the foot grips that were installed on bathroom doors at the height of the pandemic. It makes no sense to me why they were removed
Those worked for you? They have always been comically small such that they are barely usable, if at all.
The ones I've seen be a problem we're so flimsy that to put enough force onto them to open the door you ended up bending them down so far they scraped the ground.
This wouldn't be a problem if people actually washed their hands.
But we don't.
I mean unless the air blowing on your hands was freshly filtered and uv sterilized that is going to be an issue to.
At some point you'll need to settle on an acceptable level of germs or lose your mind totally
This is true. The Mythbusters episodes about double dipping tortilla chips in salsa and about leaving your toothbrush in the bathroom convinced me that the entire world is covered in an invisible layer of poo and there's nothing I can do about it, so I've got to just try to accept it.
i have lost mucho sleep over the fact that even holding my breath while using an air dryer doesn't prevent poop gems being blasted into my pores 💀
poop gems
The fecal mist lingering around is real. That's why one should always flush with a closed lid.
You ever seen an airtight toilet lid? That ain't doing shit against aerosolized fecal particulates. Don't worry though, no one's gets sick just breathing the air in a bathroom, most public toilets in America don't even have lids. If "fecal mist" was an actual health risk, the science would be well in by now, the patterns would be unavoidable and ubiquitous. Maybe if you lick the walls where the bathroom air condensates you might get sick, but most people are reasonable enough not to do that just by instinct.
In the University of Bremen it's full of big red buttons everywhere to avoid touching handles.
I would simply pinch the handle between my absolute dumptruck bootycake cheeks
Use your elbow, or your foot.
That’s why I use my prehensile penis
I've learned that in some places bathroom doors tend to open inwards, making this more difficult
I know the pain, but both of those touchless options always suck. The water never stays on or doesn’t turn on unless you motion in one specific weird spot that’s either too close or too far away. And those dryers never dry your hands well enough. I’m grateful they never had touchless doors in the same way.
Though I have seen newer foot style doors that have a small piece of metal at the bottom you can “grab” and pull open.
The perfect hygienic restroom:
Hands-free soap dispenser, set to dispense liberally (businesses never do)
A hands-free sink that actually does its fucking job and comes on at a reasonably warm temperature, with decent water pressure, for 30 seconds minimum. I can handle having to position my hands somewhere weird for a second as long as I actually get a functional goddamn sink for a usable amount of time. So many of these automated sinks fail at this it's unreal, but I'm certain non-shitty ones exist, I have used at least one.
Motion-activated paper towel dispenser with decent paper towels loaded.
Push-to-open door with no latch (such that you can just use your shoulder or hip anywhere).
Unfortunately, every public place I've ever been to has at least one failing element here. Like, it's clear some places are trying and failing; and in others it's patently obvious they're just trying to be cheap (miserly soap dispenser, sink set to turn off after just a couple seconds without motion in the magic spot and lukewarm temp, air blower instead of paper towels).
I really don't even think you need to go that far. All you need is a paper towel dispenser and a trash can next to the door. OR a door that pushes out when you're inside, like you said.
But you don't even need both of these, just one. My favorite is the latter.
Hands free sink and soap is nice, but unnecessary.
The most disgusting thing in that situation is your belt buckle. It could be the fly on your pants, but I assume those get washed every once in awhile.
How am I supposed to trap a velociraptor in the bathroom with a handle like that?
Install games on its phone
I saw a bathroom like this that had the metal thing for you to pull the door open with your foot instead.
The door required the handle to be turned in order for it to open.
I mean, I just open doors to public bathrooms with my elbow, or whatever else can push thing down while I push door open. 🤷♂️
I usually have a coat of some sort on and just open it with my hand in my pocket
That'll do 'er
My shoe works just fine.
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