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> If you use paper towels, flush them down the toilet Please don't do this. They don't break down in water. Even if your personal house plumbing could handle i

> If you use paper towels, flush them down the toilet Please don't do this. They don't break down in water. Even if your personal house plumbing could handle it, the main sewage will not if everyone starts doing this, leading to serious blockages. https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=paper%20towels%20flush https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=paper%20towels%20flush

DoreenMichele 7y ago
Then I suggest you just air dry your hands as much as possible, which is what I typically do. Or install a hot air hand dryer at home. I'm pretty appalled at the official recommendation to basically create a trash can full of damp paper products in an area with a deathly ill patient and didn't want to outright say that because people give me so much shit for expressing opinions of that sort. Paper is nasty stuff to begin with. Wet paper is a horrifying breeding ground of horribleness. Especially if it is just going to sit there for hours and possibly have other nasty stuff added to the mix. I cannot possibly overstate how strongly I feel that the official recommendation to create a trash can full of damp paper in an area with a sick person in the name of good hygiene falls under the category of "Are you insane and trying to kill people?"
- labawi 7y ago
  Against covid-19 and human viruses in general, as a means to limit spread, a trashcan full of damp paper is likely safer than a trashcan full of dry paper, dry snot in your pocket or similar alternatives. A virus needs living human/animal cells to procreate, (I guess) it's less likely to spread from a damp vs. dry and dusty material, and is likely to decontaminate much sooner - even the mentioned nastiness could be decomposing the virus. Whether the sick person is likely to get a secondary infection is another issue, though I'm not sure why you consider wet paper a horrible breeding ground.
  - throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
    I took her point to mean bacterial and fungal (mould) grot rather than viral. Given sufficient time that could become a problem, but you'd have to leave it a few weeks I'd have thought. Still, it's a valid consideration for immune-compromised people.
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      I really don't want to stay in this discussion, but did want to suggest to you in specific that you might find it interesting to look up articles about stunting and the role of chronic low grade infection due to poor hygiene. The term that gets used is "enteric" something or other. I googled "stunting enteric infections" and came up with these two articles, for example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3617052/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3617052/ https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/138/6/e20160641 https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/138/6/e201606... The TLDR: Lack of adequate food is not the full explanation for stunting. Poor hygiene in the general environment plays a significant role. General cleanliness of your general environment has significant health impacts. We know this in the abstract. We know Sick Building Syndrome exists and we know entire neighborhoods have worse health because they have all the things the NIMBYs kept out of their neighborhood. But people get bizarrely dismissive of the idea when it's a specific instance involving them in specific. Then it's all "Nuh-uh!" And "Do you have clinical studies?" And "That article you posted is orthogonal..."
      - labawi 7y ago
        It seems to me, you are outright dismissing paper-towels-in-trash-can approach, in both home and hospital use, no matter how it's managed, while recommending not drying or hot air dryers as a less bad substitute. Do you have any references linking paper towel (disposal) in particular, as an added risk for drug-resistant bacteria, stunting enteric infections, sick building syndrome or your other claims? > Wet paper is a horrifying breeding ground of horribleness. I would especially be interested in this claim, as I would intuitively expect paper to be a worse environment for dangerous organisms than most other damp indoor locations. First link on "hot air hand drying" shows bacterial spreading a breading[1], and a search on "paper towels" yields a paper[2] says paper drying is more sanitary than not drying or hot air drying. [1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot-air-hand-dryer-2018051113823 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538484/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538484/
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I will suggest you spend a little time looking up articles about how hospitals actively breed antibiotic resistant infections. They are a primary source of such infections. I think I've already reached my limit for the night for trying to politely discuss this with people in this thread. You have a good evening, so to speak.
cassianoleal 7y ago
100% that. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/uks-sewage-system-in-danger-of-gridlock-from-toilet-paper-substitutes-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/uks-sewage-sys...
eth0up 7y ago
Heiliga sheissa! Good catch. Flushing paper towels seems precisely the kind of advice an enemy would airdrop as propaganda, onto an unusually naive audience. That must've been a typo, no?. Millions of people with backed up, clogged sewage systems during a time of crisis would be a huge disadvantage.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

Then I suggest you just air dry your hands as much as possible, which is what I typically do. Or install a hot air hand dryer at home. I'm pretty appalled at the official recommendation to basically create a trash can full of damp paper products in an area with a deathly ill patient and didn't want to outright say that because people give me so much shit for expressing opinions of that sort. Paper is nasty stuff to begin with. Wet paper is a horrifying breeding ground of horribleness. Especially if it is just going to sit there for hours and possibly have other nasty stuff added to the mix. I cannot possibly overstate how strongly I feel that the official recommendation to create a trash can full of damp paper in an area with a sick person in the name of good hygiene falls under the category of "Are you insane and trying to kill people?"

labawi 7y ago
Against covid-19 and human viruses in general, as a means to limit spread, a trashcan full of damp paper is likely safer than a trashcan full of dry paper, dry snot in your pocket or similar alternatives. A virus needs living human/animal cells to procreate, (I guess) it's less likely to spread from a damp vs. dry and dusty material, and is likely to decontaminate much sooner - even the mentioned nastiness could be decomposing the virus. Whether the sick person is likely to get a secondary infection is another issue, though I'm not sure why you consider wet paper a horrible breeding ground.
- throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
  I took her point to mean bacterial and fungal (mould) grot rather than viral. Given sufficient time that could become a problem, but you'd have to leave it a few weeks I'd have thought. Still, it's a valid consideration for immune-compromised people.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I really don't want to stay in this discussion, but did want to suggest to you in specific that you might find it interesting to look up articles about stunting and the role of chronic low grade infection due to poor hygiene. The term that gets used is "enteric" something or other. I googled "stunting enteric infections" and came up with these two articles, for example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3617052/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3617052/ https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/138/6/e20160641 https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/138/6/e201606... The TLDR: Lack of adequate food is not the full explanation for stunting. Poor hygiene in the general environment plays a significant role. General cleanliness of your general environment has significant health impacts. We know this in the abstract. We know Sick Building Syndrome exists and we know entire neighborhoods have worse health because they have all the things the NIMBYs kept out of their neighborhood. But people get bizarrely dismissive of the idea when it's a specific instance involving them in specific. Then it's all "Nuh-uh!" And "Do you have clinical studies?" And "That article you posted is orthogonal..."
    - labawi 7y ago
      It seems to me, you are outright dismissing paper-towels-in-trash-can approach, in both home and hospital use, no matter how it's managed, while recommending not drying or hot air dryers as a less bad substitute. Do you have any references linking paper towel (disposal) in particular, as an added risk for drug-resistant bacteria, stunting enteric infections, sick building syndrome or your other claims? > Wet paper is a horrifying breeding ground of horribleness. I would especially be interested in this claim, as I would intuitively expect paper to be a worse environment for dangerous organisms than most other damp indoor locations. First link on "hot air hand drying" shows bacterial spreading a breading[1], and a search on "paper towels" yields a paper[2] says paper drying is more sanitary than not drying or hot air drying. [1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot-air-hand-dryer-2018051113823 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538484/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538484/
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I will suggest you spend a little time looking up articles about how hospitals actively breed antibiotic resistant infections. They are a primary source of such infections. I think I've already reached my limit for the night for trying to politely discuss this with people in this thread. You have a good evening, so to speak.

cassianoleal 7y ago

100% that. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/uks-sewage-system-in-danger-of-gridlock-from-toilet-paper-substitutes-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/uks-sewage-sys...

eth0up 7y ago

Heiliga sheissa! Good catch. Flushing paper towels seems precisely the kind of advice an enemy would airdrop as propaganda, onto an unusually naive audience. That must've been a typo, no?. Millions of people with backed up, clogged sewage systems during a time of crisis would be a huge disadvantage.