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Comment by megablast | Hacker News Reader

Anyone who cares about the environment does not use a dishwasher.

I'd need to see some estimates for handwashing, but it looks like a modern dishwasher uses 4-6gal (15-23l) of water[1]. That's about 1/10th of a bath (sure, if you're conserving water and energy you take showers instead, so it's about 1/3 of a shower).

1: https://www.consumerreports.org/dishwashers/energy-efficient...

It's not just the power and water use, but the quite harsh and caustic nature of the dishwasher detergent that is a concern in some areas

I would imagine dishwashing water use varies a lot depending on habits. I have refined my dishwashing over the years to this procedure:

0. use aerating faucet head to increase spread of water.

1. Short splash of cold water to remove stuck-on food, letting it sit if needed.

2. Wash with detergent on wet sponge, no added water.

3. Rinse with cold water, low water volume, with stacked dishes below faucet so that water from the rinse is rinsing dishes below as well.

I've never measured how much water is used, but I would think that it's fairly competitive against a dishwasher.

The Miele dishwasher I used to have in my old flat used around 7 litres per wash. My current, not quite as fancy one, uses around 9 litres.

That's like just over a minute of the tap being on full blast for an aerated tap.

I am sure you could compete with that if you really tried, but from what I've seen a lot of people simply leave the tap on for the majority of the time they are washing the dishes.

Yeah, I had to break myself of the habit of leaving the water running. When I was younger and less patient, I would soap and rinse each item in sequence, so that I got the sense that I was making progress. But as I got older, I switched to batching the soaping and rinsing as it is more efficient that way.

Also, an additional difference between handwashing and using a dishwasher is the environmental impact of the manufacturing of the dishwasher, if the main concern is the environment. If the main reason is reducing work, then the dishwasher comes out ahead.

Or do it like a normal human: fill the sink with hot water and a tiny bit of detergent, wash glasses and less greasy things first and for later dirty items (e.g. frying pan) rinse them off at the end. If you're doing a big load and the water is already cold/dirty just drain and fill the sink a second time. Saves time, saves water and detergent, no splashing, ...

I actually don't recall ever seeing a human do dishes that way except on TV. I'm also not sure that it saves water if you are filling the sink and then still using water to rinse the dishes, at least as compared with my method.

Finally, there has been very few times where it has been necessary for me to use hot water instead of cold. Unless I had burned the food, almost everything will come off after a good soak and scrub, even in cold water.

> I actually don't recall ever seeing a human do dishes that way except on TV.

I have an unusual interest in this topic. I grew up in the UK, and that's just how people do the dishes. Or at least, the people in my orbit. So when I see that on TV, it's completely normal.

But, I now live in Mexico and everybody uses some variation of your method (again, everybody with a "people I've observed washing the dishes" qualifier). I find it completely bizarre.

I got a miele recently and it uses 1.2kwhr and 12L of water if it's completely packed or down to 6L of water if it's relatively clean dishes. over time I think it uses way less energy and water than manual washing would ever achieve.

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