The Dyson Airblade is the fastest, most hygienic hand dryer available, the company says. It uses sheets of air traveling at more than 400 miles per hour to scrape water from a user’s hands like a windshield wiper, completely drying a pair of hands in 12 seconds.
The $1,199 device uses up to 80 percent less energy than warm-air hand dryers and can dry 22 pairs of hands for the price of a single paper towel, Dyson claims. Assuming a cost of one cent for every sheet of paper towel, the Airblade—which comes with a five-year warranty—reportedly will pay for itself within a year if used 200 times a day.
A program called Destiny Textbook Manager, from McHenry, Ill.-based Follett Software Co., is helping several districts save money by keeping better track of their textbooks.
A typical school district loses 5 to 10 percent of its instructional materials each year, Follett claims. The cost of replacing lost textbooks, combined with the staff costs associated with tracking down those materials, puts an unnecessary strain on already tight district budgets.
The program includes handheld bar-code scanners for tracking instructional materials by building, teacher, and student. This raises accountability, giving students an incentive to take better care of their books, Follett says. It also reduces the likelihood of unnecessary textbook purchases by district officials.
Using Destiny Textbook Manager, Florida’s Escambia County School District has saved more than $200,000 over the last two years by improving textbook accountability and reducing over-ordering across the district, Follett says. And California’s Pomona Unified Schools District reportedly has cut its textbook losses by 25 percent and reduced duplicate orders by 70 percent since implementing the system.
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