You’ve just washed your hands and are reaching over to grab a paper towel when you notice a problem: the towels that are supposed to be in the dispenser are scattered all across the floor. You have no choice but to wipe your wet, soapy hands on your pants. This common student predicament could be easily fixed if the administration installed electric hand dryers in school bathrooms.

Not only are electric hand dryers more environmentally friendly than paper towels but they would be cheaper in the long run, as paper towels require constant replenishing.

The school would just have to pay the one-time cost of installation—about $500 for the Xlerator and $1300 for the Airblade—rather than paying approximately $70 per week for each new shipment of paper towels every time the bathrooms run low, Campbell said. Electric hand dryers are also less messy than paper towels. Bathrooms would be generally cleaner without paper towels littering the floor or clogging the sinks.

It may seem like paper towels are more effective. In reality, it takes 43 seconds under a regular electric hand dryer to fully dry wet hands, about three times longer than the process takes using paper towels, according to a study by the University of Westminster in London. What makes hand dryers seem ineffective is that people generally don’t wait the full amount of time necessary to dry their hands.

Should the administration take action and replace the paper towel dispensers in the bathrooms with electric hand dryers, not only would the school become more eco-friendly and save money, but students and staff could avoid the precarious situation of being left with wet and soapy hands.

Business manager Eddy Campbell has tried multiple times over the past few years to install electric hand dryers, but the wiring in the bathrooms doesn’t support the high wattage of regular dryers. But now there are new more compatible options: the Dyson Airblade and Excel’s Xlerator hand dryer both use 80 percent less energy than regular hot-air dryers, which means that the current wiring can support them.

The administration should heed Campbell’s advice and replace the paper towel dispensers in the bathrooms with one or both of these new electric hand dryers.