This is what I was thinking of while in jury duty today. Note to all architects and designers of food facilities. Please consider the practicalities of hand washing in your design. 20 seconds is deemed a proper length of time for adequate hand washing. Count with me now, one, two, three...... That's a pretty long time, particularly if your hands are under hot running water and there are a shitload of tickets hanging. Hell, even if it's slow that's a long time. So, if I'm following the rules I don't want to blow it afterwards.
Assuming you have taken the proper amount of time to wash your hands you are confronted with some ugly realities. First, the tap handles. Obviously people with dirty hands are touching them. So your newly clean hands are no longer clean. Second, the little handle many paper dispensers have. Ditto. Then of course the door handle itself, the recipient of many a hand that never even went near the sink (at least in the men's room, women may be cleaner).
OK, so you can prepare yourself for all this by taking the paper out of the receptacle before washing. This is assuming you've got a little feed button to contend with. You can skip this step when the place uses a dispenser that allows you to get at the towels directly. So wash your hands, dry them and use the soiled towel to turn off the tap handle. Don't throw it out yet, you've still got that door to deal with. Open the door with the soiled towel.
Now here's the design part. Sure, the solution is to install touchless faucets, soap dispensers that spit the soap out at you and towel dispensers which are motion activated (PS air dryers are perhaps a better idea environmentally but I'm willing to bet they discourage hand washing because no one likes to use them unless they are drying their armpits a la Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan) but get real, who has that kind of money.
Designers: include a waste receptacle close to the door so clean people can toss the dirty towel into it on their way out.
Architects: Why oh why in 90% of all public spaces are the men's rooms closer to the action than the women's room. Every time we go out to eat my wife has to walk farther to get to the bathroom than I. Is there no chivalry? Are we that afraid of wetting our pants?
I think it has to do with men not passing by the women's door and getting a peek of something forbidden.....
Posted by: Hande | March 11, 2005 at 04:12 AM
I wasn't exactly fond of them, but the unisex loos in hip Japanese clubs when I first went there made sense: men and women standing in line inside the door, waiting for stalls. And of course, the facilities were always immaculate. The practice of separate bathrooms for men and women is ludicrous, considering the fact that women need/use them twice as often.
Posted by: Kudzu | March 11, 2005 at 09:26 AM
I love it! Sounds like your doing a good thing. I always bring the towel to the door handle. You are right. I do often feel like a member of the NBA trying to get a "basket" every time I need to dispose of the paper towel. How simple it would be to just have a place to throw that towel next to the door. Another thing, some places as you say don't have towels, just the driers. How do we get out? I often use the muscles in my first finger and thumb to grab hold of the most ungrabbed ( I think) spot on the handle to escape. Still, I'm still contaminated in two spots.
Posted by: | October 13, 2005 at 10:12 AM