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Absolutely. A dishwasher in the average American household, unless they're having massive dinner parties every night, is wanton arrogance. They not only use mor
by Dirlewanger 9y ago
Absolutely. A dishwasher in the average American household, unless they're having massive dinner parties every night, is wanton arrogance. They not only use more resources than handwashing, it also takes longer.
- rsync 9y agoI am happy to report that you are completely wrong about this. The water usage is almost a 10x difference and the power usage of handwashing is 2/3 more: "A European study comparing hand washing to machine dish washing found that hand washers used as much as 27 gallons of water and 2.5 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy to wash 12 place settings, compared with the 4 gallons and 1.5 kWh used by a hyperefficient dishwasher to wash the same number of dishes." https://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/wellbeing/washing-dishes-dishwasher-vs-hand-washing https://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/wellbeing/washing-dishes-...
- walshemj 9y ago27 gallons is over 120 L that's over a tenth of a ton of water I don't believe that figure
- emodendroket 9y agoPlug the sink next time you're washing dishes.
- walshemj 9y agoWhy do you think I don't? And use a washing up bowl
- emodendroket 9y agoI never do except by accident and it illustrates to me that I'm using a ton of water when I hand-wash dishes.
- TylerE 9y agoWait until you figure out how much even a low flow shower uses.
- walshemj 9y agoYes I could I have a Btech in thermo fluids :-) but this is doing the dishes by hand after a large meal no way do you use that much.
- to3m 9y agoIt must surely include rinsing under a fast-flowing tap (something I rarely bother with personally), and/or maybe doing the washing under a running tap too. I don't see how you could get to 120L otherwise. 120L = 7 very full sinkfuls of my fairly standard size kitchen sink. 7! For 12 people's-worth of stuff!
- emodendroket 9y agoIt sounds like he was describing just measuring how much a typical person washing dishes uses. I'm sure if you were specifically concerned with conserving water you could do better.
- to3m 9y agoI noticed that the photo at the top of the article shows somebody washing under a running tap, so maybe that's how they got to 120L. I'm not myself concerned all that much about conserving water, but I am a normal person, so I don't wash my dishes under running water. I fill the sink up with water, stick in some washing-up liquid as it fills, then once it's mostly full (12-15L of water?) I use that. Total use per wash is then 12-15L. Maybe a bit more if I give something a rinse. (Very much optional in my view for most items - but some things do need it.) You can wash a lot of stuff in that much water! So that's why I am a bit surprised at people using 120L to wash twelve places'-worth. That's eight times the amount I'd use for washing 3-4 people's-worth of stuff and all the items used to prepare the food in the first place. Poor scalability! (I think my dishwasher uses 17L per wash so I don't worry too much about using that instead. I am quite lazy.)
- telchar 9y agoYou seem to misunderstand. Dishwashers use less heat and water than hand washing, not more.