Are you looking for the most sanitary equipment for your healthcare facility’s restroom? Here are the best types of commercial paper towel dispensers for you.
It’s important to supply patients, staff, and visitors with adequate and accessible bathroom supplies. One such essential restroom supply is a paper towel dispenser. Read on to discover the best type of commercial paper towel dispenser for you and your healthcare facility’s restroom.
Importance of Paper Towel Dispensers in Commercial Bathrooms
The importance of supplying patients, staff, and visitors with plenty of accessible paper towels cannot be understated. Drying your hands is an essential step following restroom use that helps limit cross-contamination and the spread of illness.
Commercial dispensers neatly contain and deliver paper towels for bathroom patrons, increasing the cleanliness of the space and the experience for the individual. They also ensure that additional paper towels aren’t accidentally touched and potentially contaminated.
Different Commercial Paper Towel Dispensers
Now that you know the importance of having these devices in your facility’s commercial restroom, we can explore the various types of paper towel dispensers. Furthermore, we can determine the best applications for each product and which is best for your facility’s needs.
Manual Paper Towel Dispensers
Manual paper towel dispensers are extremely common in commercial bathrooms, albeit less so in healthcare environments. These paper towel dispensers feature unpowered mechanisms—such as levers and spinning wheels—to dispense the desired amount of paper towels. The user controls these devices manually and can repeat the mechanical function to retrieve more paper towels.
While manual paper towel dispensers are easily accessible and excellent at maintaining order in the restroom, they’re not great for preventing cross-contamination. If an individual incorrectly washes their hands and then touches the dispenser, they can potentially spread germs to the next bathroom patron.
Touch-Activated
Touch-activated devices are often battery-powered and feature a pre-programmed mechanism that’s activated by tapping a sensor. These paper towel dispensers can be modified to better control the number of sheets dispensed each time the sensor is tapped. Much like manual dispensers, touch-activated dispensers help organize paper towels in an easily accessible location. However, they are still susceptible to cross-contamination.
Touch-Free
The last type of commercial paper towel dispenser is the touch-free variation. Like the touch-activated dispenser, these devices are battery-powered and allow for customization of the delay and quantity of paper towels to dispense. However, touch-free equipment is activated with motion sensors that notice hand movement. Unlike the two above-listed dispensers, these dispensers are better at curbing the spread of illness, as even restroom users who have not properly washed their hands will not contaminate the dispenser for future bathroom users.
Which Is Best for Your Facility?
So of the three types of commercial paper towel dispensers, which is the best type for you and your facility? There are plenty of benefits associated with manual and touch-activated devices, including superior organization and affordability. However, touch-free paper towel dispensers are by far the best at preventing cross-contamination, making them the ideal equipment for a healthcare environment.
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