Source: I'm a pathologist who runs a clinical lab, including microbiology, and I work with my local public health authority. I was also the electrical officer o

Source: I'm a pathologist who runs a clinical lab, including microbiology, and I work with my local public health authority. I was also the electrical officer on a ship and had to help troubleshoot the ship's dish machines. I don't know about the "recycled soapy water" bit. All the systems I've seen use fresh water on each use. The cost of dishwashing is trivia for a restaurant compared to the refrigeration systems, so I would be somewhat surprised if there was a collection tank, plumbing and valving to recirculate water from. That seems like it would occupy a lot of room and cost a pretty penny. Have you actually seen such a set-up? > Dishes in your home are gross in comparison Ah, yes and no. Hot soapy water is definitely effective. But the commercial systems are meant to sanitize, not clean. There are frequently things stuck to the dishes (lettuce comes to mind) that a) don't come off in water cycles, and b) may not get hot enough, long enough to kill everything to the deep surface of the lettuce, gunk, whatever. By comparison, the dishes at home may not get to as high a temperature but you personally have the opportunity to inspect the dish before you re-use it. In a restaurant, the food is prepped to plate or serving dish before it comes to you. In either case, I would anticipate most any swabs of the dishes would fail to grow on culture. In fact, in some commercial kitchens, like hospitals, we do environmental cultures. So this is a fairly known thing, at least as far as the design performance of the sanitization machines go. So, gross, stuck-on lettuce, yes. Sterile, yes. If your local deli isn't using the machine as intended, not much I can say about that.