As someone who is trying to build the ultimate green house , one of my fondest desires is to have a dishwasher. It uses less water and less energy to clean the dishes, because you are doing them all at once! And it reaches temps that actually sanitize the dishes! How much water do you save when everyone has the trots?
So I am watching “Wife Swap”. Yeah, I know, guilty pleasure.
So they are pairing the eco freaks with the off-roaders or some damn concept, but I can’t believe I just heard this. Could they be right? Should I ban the DW? All I know is doing a load’s worth of dishes by hand emties our HW heater, where by comparison, the amount of water used in a load of dishes in a dishwasher is just a few gallons.
To complicate things, I will be using solar to preheat the hot water, I will be using photo voltaic to generate power, grey water, etc.
Plus, we all hate washing dishes. Might we have one luxury?
“Reality TV!” I just wonder how much energy will now be wasted because the ahem, “mouth-breathers” who watch Wife Swap will now start washing dishes by hand. :rolleyes:
And you know, tivoing further ahead, she is using an electric stove when she is making her environmental tofu snacks! Hey, lady, don’t you know that natural gas is clean and abundant and that your darn electricity comes from COAL or the dreaded NUCLEAR POWER oh NOES! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
I’m guessing that she assumes that the dishwasher is constantly bringing in new water–being an appliance, it must be bad, while hand-washing must be good because it’s by hand. She’s thinking it’s like a dryer or something.
What if you wash dishes using the “two-sink” method? Fill one side of the sink halfway with hot water, add soap. Fill the other half with cold water (I guess it can be hot, too, but it doesn’t need to be.) Maybe a capful of bleach if you’re feeling particularly germaphobic that day, and go to town. Shove several plates and bowls at once into the warm, soapy water. Go watch TV for a few minute while they soak, come back and scrub. Drunk in the rinse water, place in dish rack. Is that better or worse?
The googling I did for this post found numerous sites, and every one I looked at said hand washing uses more, unless you are a notably frugal handwasher, or have a much older dishwasher.
Although I always wash dishes by hand and have never ventured into dishwasher land except to repair them, both my daughters have them and they are more conservative of water when used properly.
I don’t use a great deal of water normally though. A quick rinse in cold water to remove the bulk of the crap, wash in very hot water then a final quick rinse in cold water.
I would estimate that I use approximately 3~4 gallons, must of it unheated, per washing up session. Naturally a bit more if there are woks, frying pans and greasy roasting dishes.
I used the three-sink (well, two and a half) system in Sweden and found it excellent but we are comparatively primitive here and only have a single sink.
Weird. I would have thought washing dishes under a stream of water was actually less effective.
Washing and scrubbing in a bowl of hot, soapy water, then dipping to rinse in a bowl of scalding hot plain water is pretty much analogous to what happens inside a dishwasher. What’s gross about it?
I think the benchmarking for hand-washing is pretty loose.
I get the impression that the 20-gallon wash is someone who doesn’t use a sink of suds, but washes everything under a constantly running tap. Which is amazingly wasteful.
Me, I have a plastic basin in my sink that I fill with warm soapy water. I wash everything and drop it back in the dishwater. When it’s all done, I rinse it under a running faucet, which is only on for about a minute. I’d say this method uses two gallons of water, tops.
Getting the trots from handwashing dishes? What kind of freakish hermetically sealed environment do you exist in?
While I beleive that a modern dishwasher is probably quite energy and water efficient, I think that you should allow yourself the luxury of a dishwasher even if it isn’t as environmentally friendly.
The time and effort a dishwasher saves you is worth far more than any marginal impact on water and energy use.
Yeah, if it’s what you want, and you think it’s worth it, I guess. It doesn’t sound like there’s a massive difference in the energy/water consumption either way.
**Mangetout ** and **jjimm ** there may be differences in English/American/Australian sink sizes and washing practices. I do recall from my time living in the UK that use of a smaller plastic washing up bowl in the sink was common.
However, I think you may be putting your guesses up against a surprising amount of actual study. Do a quick google.
I think you may be underestimating what a sinkful of water amounts to, for a start. I just did a quick measurement of my sink which is about average. I also looked at a few sinks on the web. Half filling the average sink seems to amount to about 16 litres or 4.2 gallons. One for washing and one for rinsing and you are already over what the more economical dishwashers use. Don’t forget also that we put our dishwasher on for a family of four once per day.
Oh, I can fully understand that a current-model dishwasher would be highly energy- and water-efficient. But as the man said,
To use a common platitude, gee, it’s a wonder we all survived childhood, under such primitive conditions! Heck, at my home even hot water was NOT used for dishes at all!
Is Happy assuming that the handwasher, in its well-meaning but misplaced effort to be ultra-green, will not just waste water but ALSO skimp beyond reason on actual soap/detergent use?
