Examining the cost of touchless dispensers
Posted In : Education, The DirtThose fancy touch-free dispensers you see everywhere are nice. And they are expensive. Or are they? It turns out, that over the lifetime of the touchless dispensers there is a good chance for you to save money both directly and indirectly.
Touch-free dispensers are generally more expensive as compared to more traditional options. If we look specifically at hand towels, the roll options for the touch-free dispensers are about 30% more expensive than their multifold, c-fold or manual roll towels. The dispensers themselves are generally not priced much higher. We all know that people tend to take many more multi-fold towels then auto-feeding towels. This is sometimes by choice, but many times it is due to the inherent issues with the dispensers which are either jammed-packed, or give the recipient more towels then they actually need. I’m sure you have experienced this where you go to grab one or two towels and end up with a handful or some fall directly into the trash below the dispenser. Setting aside the environmental concerns over usage, some people claim that the savings with the automatic dispensers is as high as 40%. My evidence is more empirical.
The following pictures are of the trash cans with multi-fold towels and trash cans with the automatic dispensers. The important point to note is that the multi-fold picture is after ONE day while the picture with the automatic dispensers is after TWO days. Yes, that’s right. There has been a significant reduction in trash to the point we are generating less then half the garbage.
Before Picture: Multi-fold towels in garbage after one day
After Picture: Touch-free dispensers after two days
And there are many indirect benefits as well. First, people really like this style of dispenser because they don’t need to touch anything previously touched by another person. Second, because people are touching less surfaces, there is less chance for spreading germs and disease. H1N1 protection plan, anyone? And third, as we discussed above, these touchless systems are more environmentally friendly. These specific dispensers have a stub-roll feature which means that every single sheet of paper towel will be used. No more throwing out the last usable 1/3 of the roll.
Whatever the reason, style, germs or environment; touchless dispensers are the way to go.
One Comment
I had the opportunity to have the Motion handtowel dispensers put in two healthcare facilities, I found that dealing with my vendor that the cabinets were 51.00 each but with a paper contract the cabinets came free and with the novations contract the price for paper change greatly and I saved the over an average of 17,000 dollars a year and the per usage lasted longer than the conventional pt holders multi fold or double fold towels outlasted them about 48% longer.