All automatic soap and paper towel dispensers to be replaced

By Megan Walsh, Staff Writer walsh15@up.edu

The ability to wash one's hands with soap is a necessity, especially in public restrooms. But due to poorly operating automatic soap dispensers, some students and staff have often not been able to wash their hands thoroughly this year.

However, thanks to a set of new of soap dispensers scheduled to be installed on campus, this problem will be solved.

About a year after installing automatic motion-detecting soap and paper towel dispensers, the University has decided to replace all of them with manual dispensers.

According to Fay Beeler, assistant director of physical plant, 400 new soap and paper towel dispensers are currently in production and expected to be installed in four to six weeks.

Beeler said that although they initially hoped automatic dispensers would be more sanitary since they didn't require a physical touch, the automatic dispensers proved unreliable and required too many batteries.

"They took D-sized batteries, and the batteries did not last as long as they should," Beeler said. "The new dispensers will be absolutely, totally more green."

Beeler added that the automatic soap dispensers emitted soap when no one needed it and ran out of soap and battery life too quickly.

The new soap dispensers will require a slight tap to dispense soap.

The new paper towel dispeners will have a free standing paper towel with a perforated edge and the paper towel will be easy to rip off without having to touch a lever, Beeler said.

Neither dispenser will require any sort of battery or form of electricity to operate.

Junior Patrick Huynh thinks this transition is positive.

"I think it is a great change, it is kind of like a going green type movement when we can get rid of all the batteries," he said.

Sophomore Sarah Pence-Jones is also glad the University is making the change, and said the current problems with the soap are annoying.

"Last year, our RA had to buy liquid soap bottles from the store to place in our hall bathroom because the automatic dispensers never worked," she said. "It's annoying when you go to wash your hands in the dorms or in Franz and all you can do is use water. It's gross."

Some students, like sophomore Lane Sperry, have resorted to buying personal-sized containers of hand sanitizers because bathrooms without soap have become such a reoccurring issue.

"I keep a few little bottles of hand-sanitizers in my backpack," she said. "The bathrooms in Franz never have soap in them, so I am excited that the school has realized this problem and is going to fix it."

Until the soap dispensers are replaced, Physical Plant has purchased batteries and will refill the automatic dispensers. Physical Plant will also keep hand sanitizer containers filled.

"We've also put small sanitizer bottles around in the computer labs," Beeler said. "And we are placing them around campus too."

Beeler hopes the new dispensers will ease everyones concerns about the lack of soap.

"This will be a big improvement because there's a lot of frustration with the soap dispensers and nobody needs extra frustration when they're teaching, or learning or working, so this will be a really good thing," Beeler said.