Hacker News Reader

Comment by rflrob | Hacker News Reader

> In my admittedly anecdotal experience, the rate of full grown adults who casually ignore the sinks after finishing up their business and leaving a stall seems to be disturbingly high

I dunno about stalls, but there is some not totally unreasonable (though still mildly icky) argument for not washing your hands after using a urinal: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1987#c...

View on HN

Not only that, but urine is -- assuming you don't have a UTI -- sterile and even a mild disinfectant. The purpose of washing hands isn't to remove any urine; rather, it's to remove any fecal bacteria along with other pathogens which may have been picked up outside of the washroom.

If for some reason you can't wash your hands, you'd probably be better off deliberately peeing on them.

Which is why it's odd that most washrooms have you pull a door by the handle to exit, a handle many others have probably touched without washing their hands. Ikea is one place that comes to mind that avoids this, instead having a sequence of offset walls to give privacy without a door.

I see that design quite often at airports too -- if you have a large volume of traffic, doors run into collision issues.

But doors do have another purpose in addition to privacy: They contain airflow. I suspect that where this design is used there is extra work to ensure a persistent flow of air coming in through the entrance and then being evacuated from within, similar to negative-pressure rooms in hospitals.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com