Author: Alex Zeldin
The bathrooms in the residence halls at Occidental College are a mess. Toilets are constantly clogged, vomit covers the sinks and fungus grows on the floor of the showers. This is by no means a reflection of how hard the cleaning staff works to clean this up on a daily basis. They do a fantastic job and it is unfair to them that they have to put up with our mess. But one move that would improve the cleanliness of the bathrooms and make sense environmentally and economically would be to discontinue providing paper towels and instead install electric hand dryers.
Hand dryers are more economically and environmentally sound than paper towels. Although dryers require electricity, they use far less energy than the amount required to make paper towels. Making paper towels requires several energy intensive and environmentally damaging steps, including cutting down trees, turning them into paper, packaging and shipping them.
Over the long-haul, dryers would cost less than constantly purchasing and logging packages of towels. We would no longer see trash cans overflowing with used towels that will end up in a landfill. On top of all that, it would make the cleaning staff’s job significantly easier, as they won’t have to restock the towels and take the used ones out to the dumpsters.
As for the times when a towel would make life easier, such as when shaving or wiping up the counter, each person already has towels in their room. Therefore, the hand-dryer would be used on a daily basis and, on the days when one would need a towel, they would have their own.
At a time when tuition is increasing and the school is looking for more ways to generate revenue, the money saved by eliminating the paper towels would go a long way.
Alex Zeldin is a junior AHVA major. He can be reached at zeldin@oxy.edu.
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