They were ok, but could never get my arse really clean.
I once met a guy that went blind from drying his face with one of these at a truck stop.
Not true. My 2 year old just started daycare a few months back and the missus and I have been sick constantly. We’ve had all kinds of weird viruses, sores, ulcers, cough and rash.
My God. Daycares are biological warfare.
Don’t look up threadworms…
Just wait until they start kindergarten.
Hopefully your toilet is close enough to the tub or sink so you can puke out of both ends.
Parenting is just wonderful.
This was a problem when my daughter was in a private dayhome, but a licensed dayhome has been a much better experience. Seems like they actually prioritize hand-washing and other hygiene practices. My kid gets sick at about a tenth of the previous rate.
These were a feature up into the mid 80’s in some places around here. They were for the most part pretty hygienic on the first pass. It was the asshole who would rewind them that made them bad.
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
I’m pushing 40 and I’ve only ever seen these in movies. I feel like they haven’t been in use since the 60s.
I’d see them very rarely, and wipe my hands on the back of my trousers if they were in use.
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
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 38 and the racetrack near my childhood home had these, they were always damp
I’m a millennial that has seen them in Sweden, but probably at least for not a decade or more by now.
No I’m 50 and I’ve seen them, definitely wasn’t alive in the 60s.
OK, so it sounds like they died out in the 70s?
I’m 30, and I’ve seen them twice in my life in-person. However, I believe that they were in very old buildings. Can’t remember exactly where, though, since they were both over ten years ago.
30s checking in, local gas station had one up until 10 or 15 years ago. I moved, haven’t been back since to check if it’s still there 🤷♂️
The shop I work with has one. Seeing these comments made me wonder if its the same rag from the 70s they just clean from time to time.
Is that some kind of joke I’m too living-in-a-third-world-country to understand?
(Honestly, no idea what that is. Is it some kind of towel?)
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.
Ah, gotcha.
Sounds totally hygienic /s
In theory, if it worked correctly, it should be hygenic and better for the environment. But as other commenters have mentioned, in reality they get jammed alot and so the same wet section gets used over and over. Or the owners don’t actually wash the roll and it just gets respooled and put back when dry.
You could do something clever with UV light possibly, but still. There’s going to be plenty of traces of crap on them even if all bacteria is dead
Only if you’re out of toilet paper.
The key to a healthy immune system is to give it lots of exercise.
Contrary to popular belief, these don’t recycle the same length of cloth over and over. It goes from end to end l.
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.
Who believes thar?
They are probably the most hygienic option for public bathrooms (until the towel runs out).
Then why the hell were they always so fucking dirty looking?
You are always looking at the part someone just used.
I remember pulling out new towels from my high school gym and them being already dirty.
Maybe they didn’t replace the rolls in your school with clean ones and just put the dirty one back in? At least the modern towel machines don’t rotate the same roll.
What about paper?
So I’ve looked into these towel dispensers when I was learning about TENCEL and the company that makes it: Lenzing.
Companies in Europe can take the dirty towels from these dispensers, bring them back to their warehouses where they have massive drums for laundering, as restock hotels and businesses as needed. It’s a pretty solid form of circularity.
Then, when those towels reach their End of Life (EOL), Lenzing has agreements with these companies to accept the cotton towels for use in their production of TENCEL. The final fiber ends up being maybe 60-70% TENCEL (twisted cellulose) and 30-40% recycled cotton. Then that fiber is sold to make clothing, sheets, maybe even more towels (one could dream).
Paper it definitely cheaper in terms of raw goods and processing, but you can’t control the waste stream. Sure, you can have garbage bins nearby, but people can toss whatever they want in there. Having a machine run through the towels means the user doesn’t have to think of care about disposal: only use. Really it’s a form of extended producer responsibility (EPR) which is the holy grail of recycling imo. Plus cotton feels better compared to paper imo
Edit: another commenter spoke to the hygiene and convenience of it all. I agree that humans suck and so relying on a machine to work is a big ask given how little maintenance lots of places do. Shaking your hands dry is probably the most sustainable since you aren’t using any materials
That is just a colossal waste
Yeah, then I think it’s washed and replaced.
They still got pretty gross, though.
Welcome to every towel in a hotel
That’s true, but they just end up completely unwound on the ground. It also gets progressively more brown
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…
Can’t say I’ve experienced this a lot. I’ve seen it happen but those are exceptions. Even in public restrooms they’re kept in good condition.
I hate those “dryers” who just blow it all straight into your face much more
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.
Did you think about the part where left over germs are now being evaporated into the air and ready to be breath in?
But not inwards like the not so hygienic Dyson ones.
and they dry my hands too much, i need my hands moist but not dripping, and there’s no such option
Just don’t hold it under for so long…
i have no idea how to explain it but drying my hands with a towel vs a hand dryer is a completely different experience for me. and the dryer just makes me feel weird
(i do have some slight OCD around washing my hands though so that might be it)
I think the hardness of the water might also play a role… At least I know that it feels way different to dry off after a shower in soft water vs. hard.
And I thought I was the only person who had this problem! I have large hands, so lots of water splashes in my fave when using of these (•_•)
They are soooooo noisy as well.
For some reason this made me think of a parking ticket 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 🤢
That was the end of the roll. It wasn’t a continuous loop, just 100-ish feet of towel that they needed to wash periodically.
Oh, there was that part, but there were also times when you could see that there was more but it just wouldn’t come out 😔
That’s why God invented clothes.
Better than almost every other option.
I’m learning from this thread that people have had bad experiences more from shit maintenance than anything else
but really, maintenance is a very key part of the design and if it’s ass to maintain then it’s just not good…
What i generally see is stuff from companies whose whole business is selling “solutions”, you buy a container that is mounted on the wall and then you buy their bundles of tissue that you just slot into the container and close it back up.When i was working at a theme park they used a system that was fascinatingly well engineered, with tissue bundles that have packaging optimized to be trivial to open, containers that hold like 2-3 bundles at once so there’s a buffer between refills, and best of all the bundles have little velcro pads on the top and bottom so you just place it on top of the previous one and then when people pull out the last bit it automatically pulls out the start of the next bundle!
Netherlands is the place where I’ve experienced these. I believe they are awesome.
