Washroom Hand Drying

The AET Green Team was tasked with finding the most environmentally friendly option for hand-drying in our washrooms. Electric hand-driers would be the best; however they are not suited for the small space available and would produce distracting noise. Through our lifecycle analysis, it was determined that re-usable cloth towels would produce far less waste and use less energy than paper towels. Even if the paper towels are composted, we calculated that using cloth towels would produce approximately 40% less GHG emissions than paper towels.  The cloth towel option is especially water and energy efficient because AET staff keep a towel at their desk and re-use it for at least 1 week before it is put in the laundry.  Our towels were sourced from a local manufacturer in Cambridge, Ontario.