Is Hand Washing Your Dishes A Good Green Choice?

There’s usually a pretty large debate about hand washing vs. dish washing between green living folks. Each side has pros and cons that they feel strongly about.

I’m on the side of dish washing being the best green choice. Dishwashers approved as energy efficient by the EPA can use a lot less water then conventional hand washing - in some cases, depending on how you wash, hand washing can waste up to 20 gallons more water than a dishwasher.

There are some other points to consider though.

Are you scrapping or rinsing your dishes? If you scrap then place your dishes in the dishwasher, it clears some food. A new dishwasher is powerful enough to get the rest of the food off. An older model dishwasher may require that you rinse dishes first, which of course wastes water.

If you use a soap that sucks (different dish washing soaps do work differently in different dishwashers) you may need to run your dishes twice - another water waste.

If you have hard water, you’ll need to use a rinse agent (vinegar can be substituted), or you’ll have to possibly run an extra rinse cycle to clear off soap residue.

If you live alone, and use maybe three dishes a day, hand washing responsibly is a better choice, because your dishwasher really should be full to be an efficient use of water.

For people on the side of hand washing is better, it can be, if you wash smart. Many people run water the entire time they wash, and that’s what wastes those 20 gallons. If you hand wash, use an easy rinse soap, run one sink full (or bin-full) of hot soapy water, and one sink (or bin-full) of warm or cool rinse water. Don’t just run the water like crazy.

What do you think - is hand washing or machine washing a better use of energy?