Which uses less water, washing dishes by hand or running the dishwasher?
Running the dishwasher uses less water!
Cleaning dirty dishes in a dishwasher can save you up to 5,000 gallons of water and $40 in utility costs each year over hand washing, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program.
Dishwashers with an Energy Star rating use from 2 to 6 gallons of water (depending on the capacity) for a complete wash cycle, while washing by hand uses at least 8 gallons — and up to nearly 30 gallons of water, depending on the method.
If you insist on washing dishes by hand, the method that uses the least amount of water is soaking dishes in a basin of warm soapy water and rinsing them in a basin of cool clear water. (By the way, if you leave the faucet running the entire time you are washing and rinsing the dishes, you use about 27 gallons of water!)
Here are tips for saving the most water when using the dishwasher:
* Avoid pre-rinsing, which isn’t necessary with modern machines and detergents. Rinsing dishes before you stick them in the dishwasher wastes more than 6,000 gallons of water per household annually, according to Consumer Reports. Just scrape the food off the plates into the trash, into the compost or down the garbage disposal and place the dishes into the dishwasher.
* Wait to run the dishwasher until it’s full. If you can’t fill up the dishwasher in one day, use the “rinse and hold” feature to prevent food from drying and sticking until you get around to starting a full load.
* Use your machine’s economy setting, if it has one, to use the least amount of water and energy.
Call Sam Pollard & Son at 252-752-3116 if you need a new, energy efficient dishwasher installed in Greenville, NC, or anywhere in eastern North Carolina.
