Wash, Dry, Contaminate

Restroom hand dryers are a common-place fixture in many restrooms.  They dry hands quickly and help move traffic in and out of restrooms faster than normal.  Plus, they save trees. 

A new study, however, shows that using hand dryers actually contaminates your hands after washing them.  The aersosolized feces that are in the air from the flushing of toilets, especially those without lids, is sucked into the hand dryers and then spread back onto your skin.  Even hand dryers with HEPA filters did not completely remove all bacteria.  Newsweek magazine reported on this new finding quoting statistics from Applied and Environmental Microbiology.