You’re finishing up washing your hands in a public restroom and have a split-second decision to make: Do you blast them with the jet dryer … or burn through paper towels like it’s 1985? You don’t want to harm the planet, of course, but it’s a scientific fact that public bathrooms are pretty disgusting. If you’re like me, your main goal is to get in and out of there without transferring something nasty to your just-washed hands.
While the days of drying our hands on that funky, half-stained, communal woven towel on a roller are over—whew!—it’s still tricky to tell what’s the safest way to dry off. Paper towels can be tossed after using, so that’s a plus. Then again, dryers these days seem to be loaded up with germ-busting tech. Should you wait (and wait) while the blower shoots mystery air your way … or pick paper and never look back?
Wonder no more: Recent research looked into this very question and landed on a clear answer. We checked it out, then consulted Brian Labus, a professor and expert in epidemiology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and virologist Karen M. Duus, a professor of microbiology at Touro University Nevada, to help break it down. Read on to find out what to do (and not to do!) after using the loo.
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What are the pros of drying your hands with an air dryer?
Hand dryers are better for the environment because they don’t waste paper, which potentially contributes to deforestation of the planet. That’s worth considering, given that in the United States we generate 3.8 million tons of paper towel and tissue waste a year, according to the latest figures from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Air dryers are also convenient … they never run out of air! And they’re usually neat, unlike disposable towels, which can end up tumbling out of overstuffed, neglected trash bins.
What are the cons of drying your hands with an air dryer?
Hand dryers do take a minute to remove the water, but the real problem is that they spread bacteria and other germs. That’s the case whether you’re in the restroom of a questionable fast-food joint or a luxe five-star hotel.
“Even clean-looking bathrooms can be a haven for all sorts of microbes,” says Labus, who is an expert in communicable disease surveillance and outbreak infection and response. “Flushing the toilet can spread fecal bacteria, and the fans in hand dryers help blow those bacteria around.”
What are the pros of drying your hands with paper towels?
Using disposable towels is a quick and convenient way to remove moisture from your hands. But it also offers something blowers don’t: friction. “By wiping your hands on a paper towel, you are physically removing some of the bacteria that remained after washing,” Labus explains.
And there’s another pro: Grabbing an extra square gives you a makeshift “mitt” that you can use to shield your skin from filthy surfaces like the faucet and door handle when you’re finished washing your hands. Gotta love a health hack that grandmas and microbiologists both swear by!
Are there cons to drying your hands with paper towels?
Paper towels are not great for the environment. On the bright side, though, more than 90% of tissue products, including paper towels, are made from recycled paper, according to a 2024 report from the American Forest & Paper Association.
Paper towels also tend to run out, meaning you could reach for one and find the restroom is flush out (I couldn’t resist!). Another challenge is the dispenser. If the towels are in a holder you have to reach up into—rather than the touchless type you hold your hands under to release—that can get grimy, adds Duus.
“I don’t like touching the box—who knows what is on there,” she says. “I confess, if the towels are overflowing, I use mine to open the door and then drop it on the floor next to the overflowing trash receptacle out of the way of traffic. I figure towels on the floor will signal whoever is monitoring the bathroom that they need to act.”
So should you dry your hands with dryers or paper towels?
Paper towels are the ideal choice from a health standpoint because they don’t spread bacteria and other germs.
Hand dryers are bacteria blowers, according to several studies, including one published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The researchers put petri dish plates in front of a bathroom hand dryer for 30 seconds and compared them with plates exposed to the restroom air with the dryer off for two minutes. The petri dishes in front of the dryers picked up 18 to 60 colonies of bacteria, compared with less than one colony of bacteria for the control petri dishes.
What does that mean for us? Using a hand dryer on your freshly washed hands can leave them teeming with germs like E. coli. And that could increase your odds of getting sick.
“The real concern is when someone has a gastrointestinal illness caused by something like norovirus, Salmonella or E. coli that is shed in the feces” and those germs get blown at your hands, Labus says. Take norovirus as an example: The stomach bug sends more than 100,000 people to the ER each year, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one major way it spreads is via hand-to-mouth transfer.
Imagine it: You wash your hands, use the dryer, then accidentally touch your mouth (or water bottle, or stick of gum). Soon you could be praying to the porcelain god.
Are hot air dryers better than cold air dryers?
In a word: No. Hot air dryers are not healthier. In fact, they spew more bacteria than cool blowers, reports a new study published in the journal ETR. The research compared hot-air blowers with regular jet dryers and discovered that while they all emitted bacteria and fungi, the hot-air blowers spewed out significantly higher bacterial loads than jet dryers.
At this point, you’re probably thinking about those hand dryers fitted with UV lights and HEPA filters. Aren’t UV lights antimicrobial? And don’t HEPA filters remove more than 99% of viruses and bacteria from the air? Yes and yes. But—a big but!—these upgrades attack only a small part of the problem, so they don’t eliminate the germ issue.
“Different designs could possibly reduce the number of germs being spread, but what really matters is the airflow,” Labus says. “Even sterile air can kick up bacteria from surfaces or spread the aerosol from a just-flushed toilet.”
But what if the restroom only has dryers?
Use one. The worst thing you can do in this scenario is let your hands air-dry. Yes, really.
“Wet hands are more likely to spread germs than dry hands, so use the hand dryer if that is all that’s available,” Labus says. Incidentally, using your pants as a towel is nearly as bad.
“Germs on your clothes are likely to be pathogens, depending on where you have been when wearing them,” Duus says. (Pathogens are organisms that cause disease, like Salmonella and norovirus.) And even clean clothes have bacteria, so definitely skip wiping your hands on your jeans.
So what’s a conscientious hand-washer to do? Follow the microbiologist’s lead and enter the facilities prepared. As Duus says, “I tend to carry a packet of dried-out sanitizing wipes in my purse for those awkward times when there is no working dryer and the towel dispenser is empty.”
I’m filing that tip away for my next New Jersey Turnpike road trip.
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Sources:
- Brian Labus, PhD, MPH, associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the School of Public Health at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; email interview, Dec. 5, 2025
- Karen M. Duus, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology at Touro University Nevada in Henderson; email interview, Dec. 4, 2025
- Applied and Environmental Microbiology: “Deposition of Bacteria and Bacterial Spores by Bathroom Hot-Air Hand Dryers”
- EPA: “Nondurable Goods: Product-Specific Data”
- ETR: “The Effect of Hand Dryers on Restroom Indoor Air Quality”
- Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control: “Bioaerosol concentrations generated from toilet flushing in a hospital-based patient care setting”
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Norovirus Facts and Stats”
- American Forest & Paper Association: “Are Toilet Paper and Paper Towels Sustainable?”
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