There was a bar near me that still had one of these things until quite recently, and yeah it was always on the ground and gross and stuff. I just used a napkin the few times I went there.
But then they had a fire and got rid of them. Now they have a freestanding roll of paper towel that’s always wet and falling on the floor which is much better…
The problem with them is that it’s up to the owner of the facility to make sure they are removed and cleaned in a timely manner, not simply re-rolled dirty towel, and the machine was in good repair and didn’t jam.
Quite often that wasn’t the case, so you’d wind up with dirty towel recycling or stuck.
Yes, this absolutely contributed to the spread of disease. No way it couldn’t. I had a family member in the medical field and said that the reason we didn’t see them anymore much past the ‘80s is because they were unhygienic thanks to the aforementioned issues.
So it’s not really the fault of the towel, it’s the fact that people are cheap bastards and don’t keep things serviced, clean, and maintained. It’s better to grumble and shake your hands dry rather than continue to use a jammed, soiled towel machine.
Every bathroom in my high school had them... The worst was when they were jammed and you tried to dry your hands on the already sopping wet stuck section 🤢
the best driers just blow a large volume of slow moving hot air at your hands, so there's no splashing and the moisture actually evaporates rather than being physically blown off the skin.
I recently talked to someone who's small family business was in their 3rd generation of making these. What they said is that there was a big market in south east Asia.
Like we learned early covid, a lot of hygienic paper goods are made locally (not worth enough to ship), and they said that there just aren't as many trees to make paper from there, so despite being very far away, this little family shop made and shipped these.
The person I talked to wasn't involved in the business directly, so they/I might have some of that wrong but I thought that was interesting. Like I guess it's enough to keep them in business but probably not enough to attract new comers?
I did see them around as a child millenial. Not totally uncommon in older and public buildings until early 2000's. The airblade dryers seemed to come in right as the last of these were phased out.
I'm Dutch and I'be seem plenty of these over the years. I can't remember where tho, probably university and maybe highschool. I feel like they're (or were) quite common
Yes. It's a reusable towel system for drying hands in a public bathroom. It's basically a really long roll of cloth that is supposed to get pulled down as its used and goes down into another rolld and washed and put back.
I haven't seen one in a really long time.
I've only seen these used in the movie 12 Angry Men. That movie feels so modern in many ways that when there's a scene in the washroom and one of the character uses these, I'm reminded that the movie came out in 1957