Earth Friendly

Permit me a complaint about motion activated dispensers in airport bathrooms. Another example of purpose lost to good intention.

You see, planes, airports, and travelers are crawling with bacteria and viruses. The purpose of soap and water is to rid these disease vectors from my hands, not possible if the damn water will not come forth from any of the motion-activated faucets in the Men’s room, despite repeated waving of said hands in front of sensors: “Hello, soapy hands here. Any day now.”

Inevitably, moving to basin #2, having lost patience with the dysfunctional faucet in basin #1, in fact causes the faucet in basin #1 to come on! Have you experienced this? Quickly dashing back to faucet #1 causes it to shut off. Then you see a person at basin #3 merrily washing his hands, and when he departs you dash to faucet #3 in effect causing it — you got it — to shut off!

By now only a pointless volume of soap remains on your hands, so you wave them beneath the sensor on soap dispenser #3. Like the faucets this proves futile. In the meantime, you see someone satisfyingly washing their hands in basin #1. You can’t avoid the feeling it’s personal.

Eventually, you find a miserly faucet that works, dispensing just enough water to moisten one half of one side of one hand, leaving it coated with a sticky emulsion well short of your lathery goal. Nevertheless, you rub your hands together with futile vigor. It’s time to rinse. Copy/paste unfulfilled entreaties to stubborn faucets until, finally, one relents and dispenses one palmful of cold water. You concede defeat. It’s almost over. You walk to the paper dispenser which happens to be mounted rather high on the wall, such that by reaching one’s hands up to activate the motion detector the meager water left on your hands begins to slowly run down your arms inside your shirt sleeves. Isn’t that special!

But wait, here comes a single sheet of one-ply paper — six by eight inches. You quickly tear it at the perforation, not daring to risk the time required for sensor reset and more hand waving for additional sheets. Touching only one hand the tiny sheet becomes instantly sodden. By now most of the water has drained to your elbows anyway, so you dry with your shirt sleeves. You crumble the sheet of sodden paper into a ball the size of a nose booger, toss it in the general direction of the trash can burgeoning with other waste, but alas, it’s a rim shot, and falls to the floor.

Leaving the bathroom you open the door with the handle (crawling with disease vectors) pleased with yourself for having incrementally saved earth’s finite resources.