How to use fewer Paper Towels

[ShawnD1]

The faucets are setup so that the employees can wash their arms. Sort of like what you see in hospital shows before they go into surgery. And yes, they use plenty of soap when they wash their hands.

I absolutely 100% assure you that not everybody is using soap every time. All it takes is a little bit of bacteria and it can grow like mad. Being a highly absorbent microfibre towel, it probably has quite a bit of moisture.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/166272.php

This self-reported number is much lower than what past observational studies have revealed; an August 2007 study (1) conducted in four U.S. cities observed 34 percent of men (presumed to be aged 18+) neglecting to wash their hands at all in public restrooms, despite the availability of soap, towels and running water.

Uh oh. The cool thing is that you touch the towel AFTER you've already rinsed the soap off your hand. Now you have Fat Jim's fecal remnants on your hands. Quick, go touch the door to the office and every other thing that everybody else is going to touch. Spread it around.

 

[Muse]

The vast majority of the drying is coming from the shaking. Could always just air dry or use your shirt, or god forbid a hand towel (clothe not paper).

I use precious few paper towels in the house. I never use them to dry my hands, that's for sure, not in the house, that is. In a public bathroom, I use what they have. I do sometimes wipe on my shirt or pants first. I'll try the shake/fold thing, though, good ideas. "Next year toilet paper" is the way the video ends. I bet I'm better than him with toilet paper. Well, who knows?

I don't get the point of that.

I don't use a lot of paper towels when drying my hands, but I do burn through them when cleaning and scrubbing the stove/countertops.

I use sponges, actually sponges I cut from discarded foam mattresses. I cut them into sizes that suit me, reuse them, rinsing in clean cold tap water and stacking them. I have stacks of them in the kitchen. I therefore use precious few paper towels in the kitchen, and those I generally reuse until they are fairly grungy before discarding.

 

[Muse]

So this guy does what I have been doing more or less for a long time? I use more than one paper towel though. My hands keep water really well.

I don't do 12 shakes either. I do like 5 and they're not that strong handed. It has a diminishing return on shakes pretty quickly. Also, shaking gets water everywhere unfortunately. So I try to minimize shake so that I don't get water all over the mirrors and the rest of the bathroom.

My last girlfriend used to berate me for getting water on the kitchen floor. It's stuck and I feel guilty when I see it and run for the mop. I guess to use this technique you must shake directly over the sink, with a deliberate movement to prevent the floor from getting wet. 12 shakes, probably I won't want to be that fastidious. Maybe 4-5, then the law of diminishing returns kicks in.

Funny, just last year there was a day where it dawned on me that regular paper towels are way too small. If *everyone* uses 2-3 towels, why not just make them twice as big so we can get by with one each.

The real issue, if you want to call it that, is that there is zero incentive to save paper towels when you are out at a restaurant or at work or whatever. Sure, I could shake my hands off and dry them with one towel, or I could be done 10 seconds faster just by using 3 towels.

The real fix is hot air dryers, if you think a fix is needed at all. They work, and use zero paper.

But those driers take so long! That's why I prefer paper. I understand the motivations in the video. The guy wants you to think ecologically, responsibly. The motivation is not to save yourself money, although if everyone was fastidious, it would save the restaurant money and your bill would be lower.

I save the earth by not washing my hands after taking a dump

If you don't get shit on your hands, it's not a big deal. If you are careful enough you can go into a public restroom, take a dump and not need to wash your hands, leave no fecal matter or germs on any surface and not pick up any, at least not on your hands.

 

[KillerCharlie]

Less demand for paper towels, less demand for trees, less need to have forests

 

[0roo0roo]

My last girlfriend used to berate me for getting water on the kitchen floor. It's stuck and I feel guilty when I see it and run for the mop. I guess to use this technique you must shake directly over the sink, with a deliberate movement to prevent the floor from getting wet. 12 shakes, probably I won't want to be that fastidious. Maybe 4-5, then the law of diminishing returns kicks in.
But those driers take so long! That's why I prefer paper. I understand the motivations in the video. The guy wants you to think ecologically, responsibly. The motivation is not to save yourself money, although if everyone was fastidious, it would save the restaurant money and your bill would be lower.If you don't get shit on your hands, it's not a big deal. If you are careful enough you can go into a public restroom, take a dump and not need to wash your hands, leave no fecal matter or germs on any surface and not pick up any, at least not on your hands.

naw the driers don't take long, the new ones blast air so fast its a few seconds

that being said, unless there is an automatic door opener or some doorless entrance, you need the towel to grab the door handle...

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Less demand for paper towels, less demand for trees, less need to de-forests

Fify

 

[Arkaign]

naw the driers don't take long, the new ones blast air so fast its a few seconds

that being said, unless there is an automatic door opener or some doorless entrance, you need the towel to grab the door handle...

Yeah, it should be god damned mandatory for restrooms to have doors that you can simply push out from the inside, so you don't have to touch them. I'm not a crazy germaphobe or anything, but I've noticed that something like 10% or less of assholes using the restroom bother to wash their fucking hands.

Obviously for small one-person-at-a-time restrooms, you'd have to have the lock and all, but at least have a trash can right next to the door so you can open the door with the paper towel you dried your hands with and toss it in as you leave.

Also, floor pedals for flushing >>>> anything else. Nothing worse than an automatic flusher that isn't working, except maybe an old handle that you're supposed to touch with your hands. I always raise my leg and flip those with my shoe.

 

[edro]

TED has "shorts".

 

[ShawnD1]

My last girlfriend used to berate me for getting water on the kitchen floor.

You should get an Asian girlfriend. They're smaller and lighter so it's a lot easier to beat the shit out of them when they talk out of turn

 

[rhino56]

That guy is just annoying.

 

[KillerCharlie]

Fify

I don't know where you live, but I've lived in northern Minnesota and Washington where logging is a big industry. They don't just hack down an entire forest and move on. They're not stupid, the land owned by timber companies is finite. US and Canadian timber companies meticulously plan the harvesting and replanting of every acre of land. They have more interest than anyone else in maintaining a tree-filled forest. If demand for paper drops then demand for forests drops. The timber companies slice up the land and sell it to private buyers. At best, the public loses access to that land. At worst, it's developed and is never a forest again.

My parents live on land that has been in the family for about 75 years. They are surrounded on 3 sides by forestry land owned by UPM (totaling 200k acres in the state). That land has been owned private timber companies for nearly that long and allows nearly unlimited public access. It's awesome having a big forest next door. There are bears and wolves everywhere. Yes, they cut down trees, but their goal is to have as many trees as possible. If the paper company has to sell the land who knows what will happen to it. Demand for timber products brings tremendous stability to the future of forests.

Of course I'm not advocating wasting paper, but there is truth to this - just like any other crop, demand for trees creates the need for more trees. This is what can happen if you lose the demand for forests:
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/volunteer/janfeb06/breaking_up.html

If you think everyone using a couple less paper towels per day is going to drastically help the environment, you're kidding yourself.

 

[dmcowen674]

How to use fewer Paper Towels

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FMBSblpcrc

What a waste

The idea is to get rid of all trees so we can blow off the planet due to less wind resistance.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I don't know where you live, but I've lived in northern Minnesota and Washington where logging is a big industry. They don't just hack down an entire forest and move on. They're not stupid, the land owned by timber companies is finite. US and Canadian timber companies meticulously plan the harvesting and replanting of every acre of land. They have more interest than anyone else in maintaining a tree-filled forest. If demand for paper drops then demand for forests drops. The timber companies slice up the land and sell it to private buyers. At best, the public loses access to that land. At worst, it's developed and is never a forest again.

My parents live on land that has been in the family for about 75 years. They are surrounded on 3 sides by forestry land owned by UPM (totaling 200k acres in the state). That land has been owned private timber companies for nearly that long and allows nearly unlimited public access. It's awesome having a big forest next door. There are bears and wolves everywhere. Yes, they cut down trees, but their goal is to have as many trees as possible. If the paper company has to sell the land who knows what will happen to it. Demand for timber products brings tremendous stability to the future of forests.

Of course I'm not advocating wasting paper, but there is truth to this - just like any other crop, demand for trees creates the need for more trees. This is what can happen if you lose the demand for forests:
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/volunteer/janfeb06/breaking_up.html

If you think everyone using a couple less paper towels per day is going to drastically help the environment, you're kidding yourself.

So tree farming ends and the land is put to better use or conserved... sad sad times eh?

 

[Jeeebus]

masturbate less?

 

[Chiropteran]

But those driers take so long! That's why I prefer paper. I understand the motivations in the video. The guy wants you to think ecologically, responsibly. The motivation is not to save yourself money, although if everyone was fastidious, it would save the restaurant money and your bill would be lower.If you don't get shit on your hands, it's not a big deal. If you are careful enough you can go into a public restroom, take a dump and not need to wash your hands, leave no fecal matter or germs on any surface and not pick up any, at least not on your hands.

Yes, the driers do tend to take longer. But if the restaurant doesn't have paper towels and only has driers, you have no choice. I'm fine with not having a choice. But if I am given the choice, I'll use 3-4 paper towels, because it's no extra cost to me.

Environmental damage argument I don't buy. Paper is made from trees typically grown for the express purpose of turning into paper. If we needed less paper towels, less trees would be grown, no net change. Would it be beneficial to humanity if we didn't have to grow and then kill/harvest so many trees? Probably, but that isn't enough of an incentive. There are numerous other things we could do that would help more and would require less personal inconvenience on my part

 

[lxskllr]

Environmental damage argument I don't buy. Paper is made from trees typically grown for the express purpose of turning into paper. If we needed less paper towels, less trees would be grown, no net change. Would it be beneficial to humanity if we didn't have to grow and then kill/harvest so many trees? Probably, but that isn't enough of an incentive. There are numerous other things we could do that would help more and would require less personal inconvenience on my part

Paper towels are low on the damage scale, but wasting resources is never the right way to go, regardless of how trivial it seems. For paper, tree farms aren't habitat. If paper needs increase, habitat has to be removed to make room for farms. Harvesting/processing/shipping the products uses energy, and creates pollution through chemical, and erosion processes.

There's no one thing anyone can do that makes a difference, but a little bit in every area of life made by everyone can make a difference.

 

[KillerCharlie]

So tree farming ends and the land is put to better use or conserved... sad sad times eh?

You obviously didn't read the post or the DNR article...

 

[Wyndru]

Is this what Ted has become?

Yes, it really has just become a talent show lately. It seems they will sponsor anyone with an idea.

Our school has a lot of ted "performances" and most of them are just weird people with some odd idea that they want to force feed to everyone.

 

[Saint Nick]

I hate when people use paper towels for anything but cleaning something or absorbing some sort of disposable fluid. They are not for DRYING...so stupid.

 

[ViviTheMage]

skip paper, everyone bathroom needs one of these :

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002ANA3UM...1B8RGF2XTHENY&

takes like 2-3 seconds and dry.

 

[Nintendesert]

Funny, just last year there was a day where it dawned on me that regular paper towels are way too small. If *everyone* uses 2-3 towels, why not just make them twice as big so we can get by with one each.

The real issue, if you want to call it that, is that there is zero incentive to save paper towels when you are out at a restaurant or at work or whatever. Sure, I could shake my hands off and dry them with one towel, or I could be done 10 seconds faster just by using 3 towels.

The real fix is hot air dryers, if you think a fix is needed at all. They work, and use zero paper.

So, your fix is to go from using a renewable resource like trees to putting the burden on electricity which is generated from polluting non-renewable resources like oil, coal and natural gas.

Brilliant.

 

[Saint Nick]

So, your fix is to go from using a renewable resource like trees to putting the burden on electricity which is generated from polluting non-renewable resources like oil, coal and natural gas.

Brilliant.

Yeah..what.

Just wipe them on your pants. Win.

 

[Nintendesert]

Yeah..what.

Just wipe them on your pants. Win.

I just lick my fingers dry. It's worked so far.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

So tree farming ends and the land is put to better use or conserved... sad sad times eh?

Ftfa: Minnesota's private forests face the threat of being subdivided and developed. Conservation easements could keep some of them intact.

herp a derp you can't read!

:hmm:


100% what vivi said

 

[NetWareHead]

At home I barely use paper towels in my kitchen unless its to wipe up something fowl or especially messy. Otherwise I use kitchen/dish towels. I use them to wipe up spills and even with windex to clean up some messes. I change them every 2-4 days depending on the soil level and they get laundered.