My friend Corey is not a complicated guy. He just wants the simple things in life, like paper towels in the restroom to use after washing his hands. He also wants more soap on a rope, but that’s a subject for another day.

On the hand-washing front, Corey isn’t too concerned about the supposed 13 billion pounds of paper towels used in America each year. Or the 110 million trees and 130 billion gallons of water that are said to be used to make those paper towels. He simply wants to not have to dry his hands on his pants after yet another failed hand-dryer attempt. We have all been there.

As I have stated many times, figures lie and liars figure. The statistics from the National Air Dryer Association will differ much from the National Paper Towel Association, if there even were such things. Meanwhile, these stats from ecofamilylife.com might make us all think a bit before we reach for another paper towel.

The average person uses about 3,000 paper towels at work in a given year. This is equivalent to 80 rolls per person, per year. Those seem like huge numbers, but if you assume someone works 250 days a year, that’s 12 paper towels per day. And I don’t know about you, but I seem to need two or three paper towels each time I wash my hands.

On the home front, families use 1.5 to 2 two rolls of paper towels every two weeks. That’s four rolls in a month or nearly 50 in a year. Once again, that sounds like a lot, until you do the math.

An important fact that is often left out of the ecological debate, though, is that, in most cases, the tree product used for making paper towels comes from leftover chips at sawmills.

If you are worried about germs, you should also know that electric hand dryers can be breeding grounds for hordes of bacteria, reportedly because, when toilets are flushed in restrooms, plumes of bacteria and microbes are sprayed into the air, according to constellation.com. Instead of settling onto surfaces, these particles circulate within restroom air currents and are picked up by hand dryers and blown onto your hands. And, for that reason alone, it’s a good thing we have gallons of hand sanitizer still around.

So, we have a choice to make. We either save trees by using electric hand dryers or avoid germs and use paper towels. Either way, I am guessing most of us, in one form or another, will be joining Corey and wiping our hands our pants.

Have a wonderful Wednesday, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
President and Publisher
Big Green Umbrella Media
shane@dmcityview.com
515-953-4822, ext. 305
www.thedailyumbrella.com

See Shane Goodman's previous columns here.

FOOD DUDE
The aroma of searing protein

By Jim Duncan

Embers filet
The fashion of the day is “the next new thing.” Social media made it so. Everyone with a phone is now a critic and a wannabe influencer. And influencers flock only where the other trendsetters perch.

Metro Des Moines is home now to six high-end, USDA prime steakhouses, four in the Jordan Creek area. Jesse’s Embers makes no pretense about fashions of the day. Its hat hangs on the rack of tradition, specifically the steakhouse tradition that flourished in step with Iowa’s development as an agricultural wonderland.

[...]

Meet John Kotz
A career of teaching and coaching

By T.K. West

John Kotz recently came out of retirement to join the Adel-DeSoto-Minburn teaching staff. After graduating from Denison High School in 1980, he spent the next five years working a couple of different jobs, during which he realized that, to make a better life for himself, he would need more education.

Kotz received a bachelor’s degree in technology education and a coaching endorsement from the University of Northern Iowa in 1989. He then taught at the Perry School District before retiring from the Waukee School District in 2021. Since then, Kotz has come out of retirement twice. Last year, he taught one semester at Saydel High School, and last fall he taught one semester at the Adel-DeSoto-Minburn High School.

[...]

These celebrities were born on this date:  Adriana Lima, Alissa Violet, Dave Franco, Cody Horn, Jrue Holiday, Chris Young, Lil Duval, Evelyn Gonzalez, Kendra Wilkinson

SUBMIT: Send your birthday greetings and congratulatory notes to: tammy@iowalivingmagazines.com

The answer to yesterday's riddle:

What makes Al Gore so robotic? AL GORE RHYTHM! - Carolyn Rogers, Gail Tomlinson. Other answers from Rex Post.

Today's riddle

Are all math puns bad?

Have a guess? Email tammy@iowalivingmagazines.com

To advertise in the Daily Umbrella or Winterset Living magazine, contact:

Kristine McDonald
Account Executive
Mobile: C: 515-975-3543
kristine@iowalivingmagazines.com

©Big Green Umbrella Media, Inc., all rights reserved.
www.biggreenumbrellamedia.com. Add webmaster@dmcityview.com to your address book to ensure delivery. Did someone forward you this newsletter? Click here to get it delivered to your inbox for FREE!