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Paper towel
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A paper towel has almost the same purposes as conventional towels, such as drying hands, wiping windows, dusting, and cleaning up spills etc. They are most commonly known for being used in kitchen work. Because paper towels are disposable, they are often chosen to avoid the spreading of germs. It has been disputed as to whether or not paper towels have more or less environmental impact than conventional cloth towels.
r towels are tissue papers made from paper pulp.
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A paper towel has almost the same purposes as conventional towels, such as drying hands, wiping windows, dusting, and cleaning up spills etc. They are most commonly known for being used in kitchen work. Because paper towels are disposable, they are often chosen to avoid the spreading of germs. It has been disputed as to whether or not paper towels have more or less environmental impact than conventional cloth towels.
How they are made
Paper towels are tissue papers made from paper pulp. They are sometimes bleached during the production process to make the color whiter. It is not uncommon for rolls of paper towels to include intricate colored images on each square (such as flowers or teddy bears). Resin size is used to improve the wet strength. Patterns of shapes such as circles or diamonds are often imprinted into the paper towels to help it hold moisture. Manufacturers use the pattern of the material, microscopic spaces within the pattern, and a type of cellulose in the fibers in order to maximize absorption. Most rolls are manufactured with two layers of thin paper, but different types can have more or fewer layers.
Varieties and nomenclature
There are two distinct classes of paper towels in existence: the "domestic" paper towel, and the "institutional" paper towel.
Institutional paper towels come in a variety of types. These paper towels are usually made of lighter and rougher paper than the domestic paper towels. Institutional paper towels are usually made to be placed in metal or plastic dispensers, generally found in public bathrooms.
Comparison with Hand Dryers
Hand dryers have been popular with industries for their apparent economies; hand dryers can cut costs by as much as 90%, when compared to paper towels. They require very little maintenance, whereas paper towel stocks need to be replaced, and used paper towels removed.
Due to the reduction in litter and waste in comparison with paper towels (which cannot be recycled), hand dryers are also claimed to be better for the environment. One source claims that an average fast-food restaurant using paper towels, annually, results in 9 fully-grown trees being cut down, and 1,000 pounds of landfill waste created (paper towels alone amount to 35% of landfill space currently used), though many are often unaware of these consequences. Even before the paper towels are used, each ton has claimed 20,000 gallons of water in chemical cleansing.
Hand dryers, are also claimed to be more hygienic (though note the counterclaims below). Doctors at the University of Ottawa claim that "the blowing of warm air may lead to an accelerated dehydration of the skin surface, thereby affecting the viability" of the microorganisms, and that the warm air may "penetrate all the crevices in the skin, whereas absorbent towels may not reach such areas, even though the skin appears dryer".
The general public find most hand dryers, particularly early models, slow to use compared to paper towels. As a result, newer high-speed models are available to the market. In addition, if a facility completely replaces its towel dispensers with hand dryers, then people often no longer have access to the towels for things like cleaning up spills, wiping up messes on their body or clothing, etc. Some also may find hand dryers to be too noisy.
Because hand dryers can be costly to purchase and install, facilities managers must do a careful cost analysis to determine whether they are cost effective in their building.
, an association of food service suppliers that includes paper makers, argues that hand dryers have "no place" in food areas "mainly because they are neither effective or fast."
Other studies have found the hand dryer to be less hygienic than the paper towel. One paper (Ngeow YF, Ong HW, Tan P. Dispersal of bacteria by an electric air hand dryer. Malays J Pathol. 1989 Aug;11:53-6.) found that air dryers dispersed marker bacteria in a radius of three feet and onto the investigator's laboratory coat. Another study (Rebecca Montville, Yuhuan Chen and Donald W. Schaffner, Risk assessment of hand washing efficacy using literature and experimental data, International Journal of Food Microbiology, Volume 73, Issues 2-3, 11 March 2002, Pages 305-313) found that hot air dryers had the capacity to increase the bacterial count on the skin, and that paper towel drying decreased skin bacterial count. This is agreed upon by another study (Gould D. The significance of hand-drying in the prevention of infection. Nurs Times. 1994 Nov 23-29;90(47):33-5), which also found that the mechanical action of paper towel drying removed bacteria, which is something hand dryers cannot do.
See also
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