I spent the past summer in Nicaragua where almost all wood is protected or otherwise considered a luxury item reserved for boutique furniture and art. It was a culture shock when compared to life in Canada, where lumber is so expendable that we literally use it by the ton every day just to dry our hands. Perhaps this is a result to our society’s culture of disassociation and mindless consumption. Or because our government subsidizes the logging industry so extravagantly that wood and paper products are practically shoved down our throats. Or both. Either way, I want you to step back and ask yourself: does it really make sense, and is it necessary, for every person using a public washroom to dry their hands with wads of paper?
Paper towel uses 51,000 trees a day. And I hear you groaning, “But UFV composts their paper towel!” I commend their contribution to protecting our environment but consider the immense energy needed to mill, produce, transport, and remove even compostable or recycled product.
Scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology completed the first major study assessing the greenest way to dry your hands and found that paper towels account for 70 per cent more carbon emissions than Dyson hand dryers. I propose UFV add substantially more hand dryers to campus washrooms and install counters on them, similar to the water-refill stations, that tally the amount of trees saved. The counters will hopefully make us more conscious of our consumption — the first step towards environmental sustainability.
