New Hand Dryers for a Sustainable Campus

Hand Dryers for a Sustainable Campus

Installing the Dyson Airblade V during the renovation of a campus building and relocation of the admission center allowed Boston University to greatly reduce landfill waste and further their mission of sustainability.

Chartered in 1869, Boston University (BU) is one of the nation’s largest private urban research universities. With over 33,000 students, nearly 10,000 staff and 17 schools and colleges offering 250 fields of study, BU ranks in the top 50 of U.S. News & World Report ’s annual ranking of the nation’s top universities.

Boston University’s aim is to drive change on campus and integrate sustainability into existing education, research and operations programs to reduce energy consumption and decrease waste across its two campuses. With the Facilities Management & Planning department, the initiative aims to improve the sustainability of existing campus buildings, renovations and new construction.

To improve a prospective student’s experience with a larger, more technologically advanced space, BU decided to renovate an existing campus building and relocate its admission center there. To support their mission of sustainability at the Leventhal Center, the university decided to try the Dyson Airblade V hand dryer in four of the admission center restrooms.

In the four restrooms with Airblade™ technology, paper towels were not installed as a hand drying option, therefore reducing the waste that’s generated from paper towels. Assuming that an estimated 70,000 annual visitors to the Leventhal Center use the Dyson Airblade hand dryer instead of paper towels, over 140,000 paper towels would be saved from going into a landfill annually.

www.dysonairblade.com

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • Zurn Elkay Releases 2025 Sustainability Report

    Zurn Elkay Water Solutions recently announced the release of its annual sustainability report, according to a news release. The 2025 report discusses the organization’s efforts to maintain good environmental stewardship and the solutions provided in helping customers meet sustainability goals.

  • New Arizona Fine Arts School Reaches Construction Milestone

    Construction of the new Hilltop School for the Arts and Theater in Litchfield Park, Ariz., recently hit a significant milestone, according to a news release. The Agua Fria High School District held a beam-signing ceremony to celebrate the building’s topping out, or the placement of its last structural beam.

  • Chartwells Launches Campus Dining Evaluation Framework

    Contract food-service management provider Chartwells Higher Education recently announced the launch of BLUEPRINT, according to a news release. The evaluation framework was designed to provide a data-driven and customizable roadmap towards optimizing campus dining services and, by extension, the student experience.

  • Spaces4Learning Launches 2026 Education Design Showcase Awards

    Spaces4Learning has opened submissions for the 2026 Education Design Showcase! The awards program launched in 1999 with the goal of celebrating innovative, practical solutions in the planning, design, and construction of K–12 and higher-education facilities. EDS recognizes new developments that help achieve optimal learning environments, as well as the architecture firms that brought the ideas to life.