As more public restrooms remove paper towel dispensers under the guise of keeping the facilities cleaner and greener, a new study has found that public restroom hand dryers can make your hands much dirtier after use.
A report in Applied and Environmental Microbiology says that hot air hand dryers are likely to pick up fecal particles and spray them back on to your hands after you just washed them.
The study conducted in 36 bathrooms at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, found that in as little as 30 seconds the machines can blow out tons of bacteria.
Researchers think open top toilet seats, common in most restrooms, make the problem worse by creating a "toilet plume," spraying feces and other germs up to 15 feet in the air during a flush and then being sucked up by the dryers.