Dish Washing Efficiency
July 30, 2009
Your dishwasher is the most energy efficient ( and economical ) way to wash your dishes. It uses half the energy and 1/6 the water over washing dishes by hand. I know from experience that dishwashing uses less soap, too. I tend to be a bit generous in the soap department when washing dishes by hand.
To keep your dishwasher at it’s peak efficiency, make sure you pack it full. It uses the same amount of water and electricity to run a half full or full dishwasher so you might as well get all your money’s worth with a full load.
You don’t need to rinse dishes first, just scrape them off. Prerinsing just wastes water. We put most of our empty containers, like peanut butter jars, in the dishwasher to get clean before recycling. If you must prerinse, do it in cold water.
Most of your daily loads only require a short rinse cycle and you don’t need the fancy options like ‘sanitize’, ‘tough scrub’ or ‘hi temp wash’.
To save further energy ( and money ), turn off the dishwasher after it’s last rinse and open the door to air dry dishes – save up to 15% of the total energy used for the cycle.
