It’s either cold, wet hands and slimy door handles, or blown-dry hands and germy skin. Piedmont prides itself on the cleanliness of its facilities, yet the lack of paper towels in bathrooms is a major health concern that should be addressed for the safety of students and faculty.

For the past two years, the hand towel dispensers in the STEAM building have been empty. Principal David Yoshihara explained that because there are hand dryers, the school did not see the need for paper towels as well. There are typically paper towels in the 20s and 30s building bathrooms, but as of April 16, a notice was posted in the 30s building boys’ bathrooms addressing the “misuse” of paper towels and announcing that the privilege was being revoked. Paper towels should not be a privilege, they should be a bare minimum right. The misuse was described as “too many towels per handwash, towels thrown on the floor rather than the bin, messy and dirty environment, wasted resources”. The suggested solutions to the problem, according to the flyer, were to “be responsible with school facilities, clean up after yourself, use hand dryers when available”. All of these are sensible approaches to take. 

The only problem is for the people who wish to maintain their hygiene. 

Hand dryers have trays below them to catch the water which is blown off of people’s hands. After the water lands on the tray, it evaporates back up into the hand dryer, and whatever particles were on the hands of the people before will blow back onto the next person’s hands. According to Harvard Health Publishing, these hand dryers also pull in the bacteria from restroom air, including the fecal cloud from flushed toilets. The lack of an alternative hand drying method is a huge health concern considering that, as high schoolers, there is great variation in the level of responsibility when it comes to hand washing. 

It’s not just unsanitary; it is also inconvenient. Teachers suffer too, because when there is a spill in the classroom, teachers are not provided with paper towels. I know of many teachers in the STEAM building who are having to spend their own money on staple cleaning supplies. For this reason alone, we should bring back paper towels in all bathrooms. If there is no bathroom hygiene, then there should at least be a maintained level of classroom cleanliness. 

Since there are no hand towels available in the bathrooms, students are at a high risk of contracting the germs of the less diligent hand washers who came before. These germs continue to spread when eating food, opening doors, and dapping up classmates in the hall. I’m not saying that having hand towels in the bathrooms will change people’s bad hygiene habits, but it will help those who care to maintain their good habits. Posting flyers about hand towels will not lead to better bathroom maintenance. It will just lead to more frustration.

The hygiene of the entire student population is being compromised as a result of an irresponsible minority. It is unacceptable to have no alternative to hand dryers.