the puzzle piece behind the couch

The air drier was initially meant to be more "environmentally friendly" because you didn't kill trees for the paper. But then again it burns up electricity.

I think the air dryer is better if you can't recycle the paper, but if you do recycle it (you should've washed your hands thoroughly and only be using it for drying anyhow) then they're just going to shred it and wet it down and make it into something new anyhow, so that would probably be better then. Interesting question, I suppose the best would be to always carry your own towel around to dry your hands, then wash it when you get home (by hand of course) before turning on your solar battery powered lights and reading a good book until time for sleep, indicated by the batteries running out.

Lots of technology is highly environmental sound, but to be honest, convinience comes first. It's a teetering balance. Sometimes things are better now than ever before, safer, cleaner, nicer to use, and conversely other things are still wasteful and bad in favor of making life easier.

If you're going to worry about little things, it's a question of how much convinience will you give up in exchange for helping the environment.

Hmm.

We have dryers at work. On them there is a small notice saying "dryers are hygenic and prevent trees being used for paper towels". I'm always sceptical when I read that but I'm not sure whether paper towels are much better.

Paper towel:
Kills a tree somewhere. It's probably from a managed forest so it's sustainable. The tree locks up CO2 as it grows and the towel will go to landfill which keeps the CO2 in the ground. But there is the energy required to harvest the tree and turn it into paper, this probably requires a lot of water which uses more energy, some non-nice chemicals too, then there is pollution associated with distribution of the towels and disposal of waste.

Hand dryer:
Probably uses shed loads of electricity while it's running (a good few amps for 20 seconds?). The electricity will have come from a power station probably burning natural gas or other fossil fuel. Generating the electricity is probably about 40% efficient (?). Then there are energy losses in sending the electricity long distances. There's also the energy needed to make the dryer in the first place and install it in your building but this is very small compared to the other uses.

What really annoys me about our dryers is that they are on for 20 seconds no matter what. If someone has just used it and it's still running then I get the end of their 20 seconds. But then I have to press the button again to get more which makes it run for another 20 seconds.

I think we should have hand dryers that are powered by people stepping up and down on steppy things. That would easily generate enough wind to dry your hands and it would keep people a bit fitter too. It would be really good if some everyday things were powered by people.

I'm going to give you questions for the questions meme, even if you don't want them. *^_^* Because you were spiffy and gave me questions, so I will return the favour. ^_^

1. If you could be on one "reality" show, British or American, what would it be?

2. If you could go back in time, and invent something that's already been invented, what would you choose and why?

3. Describe your ideal date with a celebrity.

4. If you could commit one crime, and not get caught and not feel guilty, what would it be?

5. If you could work absolutely anywhere doing absolutely anything, what and where would it be?


Man. A lot of these start with "If." Didn't plan it that way. ^_~