There is a long standing discussion about what is best for the environment, hand washing or dishwashing. The simple answer is using the dishwasher wins out. There are many reasons why and we will discuss each one. There is no more need to feel guilty about filling up the wash with a load of dirty dishes.
There are some important things to consider in this controversy. The main reason to choose hand washing dishes over the washer is energy usage. Truth be told, in newer washers main energy usage is heating the water to wash the dishes. However, hand washing probably uses less energy.
In order to get the full environmental savings, you have to consider doing a couple thing that will help. For starters, DO NOT pre-wash your dished. This kind of defeats the purpose of the dishwasher. In order to get the full energy savings of a dishwasher, make sure not to have the dishwasher dry them.
Dishwashers will generally use 35% less water than hand washing. If you run your dishwasher with a full load, this will use far less water than hand washing. Beyond everything, using a dishwasher is far easier than doing them by hands.
When you go home at the end of the day, there is no more need to feel guilty as you put your dirty dishes to be washed. In fact, be proud run that dishwasher full, air dry and know that you are helping with one easy way to go green.
Friday, November 7, 2008
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4 comments:
Here's how I hand wash my dishes (no space for a machine in my place):
a. make a hot soap/water solution in a bowl.
b. wash all or at least a good pile of dishes just dipping your brush in the solution.
c. rinse the whole lot at once with COLD water.
d. leave to dry in the rack.
e. repeat if you have more.
f. the leftover of the soap solution, if you have any, is even cold, good enough for the breakfast dishes next morning.
I use:
-practically no energy
-no more water than strictly needed
-no more detergent than strictly needed
I second what le-chat says. It is definitely possible to do the dishes by hand with far less energy and water than a dishwasher uses, if your objective is to go green. Here's how I do the dishes by hand:
1. Always leave old water in the sink - from the last time you washed dishes, or the veggies you washed before dinner, or the drained water from the pasta pot.
2. Prerinse everything in the old water. You get 90% of the grease and leftovers off this way without using a drop of extra water or energy (other than your own calories). Stack the prerinsed dishes ready to wash.
3. Clean out the sink, put in the plug, and put about a quarter inch of water in - just enough to wet a clean sponge. Dab the sponge with a small amount of dish soap (an especially small amount if your water is acidic or soft like mine).
4. Wash each dish with the soapy sponge. They usually come clean very easily since they've been pre-rinsed.
5. Rinse the first few dishes with rinse water, which fills into the sink.
6. Continue with this process, but at a certain point you've got enough rinse water in the sink that you don't need to use water from the tap to rinse, you just use what you've already got. (Until it gets too soapy, but if you were careful with how much soap you put on the sponge you don't have to worry about that.)
7. Put the wet, clean and rinsed dishes in your clean, unused dishwasher, which makes a great drying rack.
8. Guess what? You've got a sink full of water that you can use to prerinse the next set of dishes!
We need to challenge conventional wisdom. While it's true (or a truism) that an automatic dishwasher will waste far less energy and water than a careless human being, a conscientious and conservation-conscious person can outperform the dishwasher every time.
Robin from Green Energy Efficient Homes.
I agree with the comments. Done right, hand wash should be better. The advantage of hand wash is that a person can pinpoint trouble area such as sticking leftover, whereas machine just blasts everything uniformly with hot water and chemical.
I would like to add that scraping the leftover, especially grease, before washing is very important. Otherwise the grease will spread to the next wash. Use kitchen paper if the grease is excessive. Also, wash in the order of increasing grease content: drinking cups first, frying pan last.
Paulus
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