All hand dryers are a health hazard. They're a wet, warm, bacteria incubator that can then aerosolize the bacteria.

In contrast, the mechanical action of drying your hands with a paper towel is an additional antibacterial step.

Why do you imagine that normal hands dryers are wet? The original Dyson airblades? Sure. Those are gross. Normal air dryers don’t have anywhere to store water, and if somehow you got water inside, it would rapidly dry itself out from normal use.

I had to read all of 4 sentences to see that this does not say that air dryers are growing bacteria. In fact it says the opposite, that there was very little bacteria in the nozzles. There is bacteria in the air and the dryers are sucking it in and pushing it onto hands being dried.

False.

The emerging research showing hearing damage to children, who stand closer and lower in to the air blower, is pretty damning.

I'll pretty much never use these if I can avoid it. Paper towel is quick, it's quiet, it's mess free, and it's made out of a renewable resource that pulls CO2 from the air. What's not to like about paper towels?

Brought to light with some nice work by a junior researcher recently, https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739783918/hand-dryers-harm-ch...

I wipe my hands on my pants.