#The post-pandemic future of public washrooms
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“#The post-pandemic future of public washrooms”
About three-quarters of Canadians became more concerned about visiting public washrooms during the pandemic and more than half planned to use the facilities less frequently, according to a survey conducted by Dyson in 2020¹. As COVID-19 variants continue to pose a threat, architects, facility managers and technology companies are rethinking washroom design to minimize risks.
Darryl Condon, managing partner of HCMA, an architecture and design firm with offices in Vancouver, Victoria and Edmonton, says public washrooms are going to look a lot different moving forward—and for good reason. “There’s an increased desire to see cleanliness in action and less tolerance for mess in public washrooms,” he says. “The more comfortable people are, the safer they feel, the more likely they are to reengage in public life.”
With businesses making their way to full capacity and office workers slowly returning, Salomé Gião, senior microbiologist and scientist at Dyson, says one of the most effective things you can do to reduce the spread of bacteria and viruses is practise good hand hygiene. While public health messages have focused on handwashing, Gião says thoroughly drying your hands is just as important.
Gião’s washrooms of the future will also have cleaner air. The Canadian government has published guidelines on how to improve indoor air, ventilation and filtration to help reduce the spread of COVID-19, and Gião urges facility managers to follow them.
A new study commissioned by Dyson and conducted by Airmid Healthgroup, a biomedical research organization specializing in aerobiology, compared the use of a Dyson Airblade hand dryer with paper towels. They found that walking around, washing your hands and drying your hands with either method all generated a similar number of aerosols—tiny particles (of liquids, solids or both) suspended in the air that may contain bacteria and viruses—and didn’t have a significant impact on the surrounding air³. “It’s a myth that jet air dryers are unhygienic and blow bacteria and viruses around,” Gião says.
Calgary’s CORE Shopping Centre was one of the first malls in North America to install Dyson Airblade 9kJ hand dryers in their washrooms. For Domenic Mazzocchi, the centre’s director of property management, the choice came down to the fact that they don’t need to be regularly refilled like paper towel dispensers and they’re more sustainable. “With COVID-19 being top of mind for our shoppers, we were looking for a hygienic solution that provided enhanced abilities and fit with our sustainability requirements,” he said. Based on a lifecycle analysis, the Dyson Airblade emits up to 85 per cent less C0₂ emissions than paper towels.⁴
“In the past, washrooms were squeezed into the bare minimum of area because of the costs and conflicting demands, but I think we’re going to see more area given to them because of sensitives to greater clearances and space,” he says. These larger washrooms—particularly important in spaces with intense periods of use, such as movie theatres and sports venues— will allow for circular patterns of movement with separate ways in and out, similar to the design of grocery stores.
Condon and his colleagues are already integrating many of these ideas into their projects. “We’ve got a number of projects in the design phase that are different today than they would have been pre-pandemic and are further along in the evolution towards inclusion and equity,” he says. “Our clients are feeling the pressure from their communities and recognizing that this is an area that we need to approach with a new mindset.”
Reducing the spread of bacteria:
- If there is a toilet lid, put it down before flushing
- Wash hands with water and soap, when available. If not, then use a gel sanitizer to clean hands
- Dry hands completely and avoid rubbing hands together, as it could lift bacteria from lower skin layers
- Avoid touching surfaces after washing and drying hands
- Spend as little time as possible in the washroom
Learn more about Dyson hand dryers here.
1 Global survey conducted in July 2020 across 14 countries worldwide (UK, DE, ES, FR, IT, NL, US, CA, MX, CN, JP, MY, SG, AU) with 8758 respondents in total (525 in Canada), aged 18 years old or above. Individual percentages vary per country. 2 D. R. PATRICK, G. FINDON and T. E. MILLER: Residual moisture determines the level of touch-contact-associated bacterial transfer following handwashing, Epidemiol. Infect. (1997): 119, 319-325. 3 Based on aerosolization measured during hand drying. Testing conducted by independent third-party lab. 4 The environmental impact of electrical appliances and paper towels was measured by Carbon Trust. The calculations were produced using the software Footprint Expert Pro, based on product use over 5 years and using weighted averages of individual countries of use. Dry times for product were evaluated in Max mode using DTM 769.
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