Adieu, paper towels. A month ago, the Department of Residence Life instituted a trial cutback on paper towels for communal bathrooms. Although this was a sudden inconvenience for many of us, going through with the trial was a great decision. But ResLife should take the idea behind the trial several steps further by permanently ceasing to supply paper towels to all bathrooms. The inconveniences that may arise from this initiative are far outweighed by its financial and environmental benefits. The purchase of paper towels to fill the dispensers throughout the school is almost certainly not a pivotal aspect of the University's annual budget, but it's still significant.

While increasing the University's enrollment or selling some art may yield larger overall amounts of money, ridding ourselves of a reliance on paper towels is a straightforward decision that can be made instantaneously and effortlessly and will yield immediate financial savings. If ResLife decided to stop supplying paper towels for communal bathrooms today, the decision could be implemented simply stopping refills of the paper towel dispensers.

Environmental considerations make it hard to argue against eliminating paper towels from our bathrooms. Paper towels are used once and then disposed of. Although they are often made of recycled materials, we throw them in garbage cans after a single use and ultimately bury them in landfills. And then we buy some more, which means someone has to make some more.

The prospect of mass deforestation within the United States is not currently a major concern, but the processes of cutting down trees and transporting the material to factories and ultimately to Brandeis University, as well as the manufacture of the paper towel itself, all leads, in at least some way, to the release of additional harmful gases into our atmosphere.

The prospect of a University largely devoid of paper towels may create an image of thousands of people stricken with a perpetual plague of awkwardly wet hands. But in our bathrooms, in remarkably close proximity to the paper towels, are electric hand dryers. As I grab one or two paper towels to dry my hands, I often forget about their existence. But they really are there. And they really do work.

More importantly, electric hand dryers are notably more environmentally friendly than paper towels, according to research findings from Franklin Associates, a consulting firm that specializes in life cycle analysis and solid waste management. This is after taking into account production and transportation energy costs over time. According to the findings, if someone uses a hand dryer for 30 seconds to dry their hands as opposed to two paper towels, he or she uses less than half the energy. Even using just one paper towel uses more energy than an electric hand-drying session.

The electric hand dryers are also superior on a financial level. Yes, there is the cost of the apparatuses and their installation. But the savings are palpable once they're installed-which they already are at Brandeis. Master Building Specialties, a bathroom construction company, studied the cost differences between the two and found that for every 1000 hand dryings, paper towel usage costs about $25 while electric hand dryer usage costs only $1.34. That's a huge difference over the course of a semester.

And to those with cleanliness concerns: Electric hand dryers are just as safe as paper towels regarding germs. The Division of Clinical Microbiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, N.Y. performed an experiment in which researchers traced the germ counts on the hands of participants using four different forms of hand-drying including paper towels and electric hand dryers. The data collected in the experiment demonstrated "no statistically significant differences" in any method's effectiveness at removing bacteria. And if students really don't want to use the electric hand dryer for whatever reason, they can bring hand towels to the bathroom.

Continuing our inefficient use of paper towels is unwise and impractical. Aside from saving a handful of seconds to more rapidly dry our hands, there is no real benefit derived from keeping paper towels around. When we are faced with a simple decision that is both economically and environmentally friendly, we should act. ResLife should immediately cease to supply our bathrooms with paper towels. It's just the right decision.