What is more water-effeicient: washing dishes by hand, or using the dishwasher?

Question

What is more water-effeicient: washing dishes by hand, or using the dishwasher?

Answer 1

Washing by hand

Answer 2

Dishwasher but only if it is full.

Answer 3

It's up the washer.

7-10 gallons of water per cycle for a dishwasher, but I use only enough water that I need.

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Answer 4

i htink hand washing is more conservative - you have total control how much you use at any one time.

Answer 5

Washing by hand, with two sinks you fill one up with hot soapy water to wash and the other with just hot water to rinse. You would save on electricity too.

Answer 6

Have you ever been camping?   How much water do you heat up over a fire to wash your dishes?    Growing up I had to carry drinking/wash water 1/4 mile every day.   You can learn to use very little if you want washing by hand.

Answer 7

By hand, remember not to leave the water running the whole dishwashing time!

Answer 8

JoeCool's got it.  Like a shower compared to a bathtub, the dishwasher is very efficient and uses pressure and low quantities of water to wash dishes.  In almost all cases, dishwasher uses less water.

Answer 9

It really depends on how the person washes their dishes. If you leave the water running the whole time and clean really thoroughly each piece of china, then the dishwasher is more efficient, but if you like to be Eco friendly and shut the water off while you are sponging your dishes, then doing them by hand is more efficient. Dishwashers take a lot of water, like 5-10 gallons. Also, they dont clean so thoroughly due to various reasons such as not using a high pressure nozzle to spray water. Ultimately washing them by hand is a better way to go because you get to choose how thorough you want to clean each dish, whereas a dish washer will clean each dish the same, so if there is one that is more soiled, occasionally not all of the dirt gets cleaned off

Answer 10

The dish washer takes resources to build, energy to run, and takes up precious space. Every one using a dish washer right now must stop.

Answer 11

I think the dishwasher is more water-efficient, but washing by hand more energy-efficient.

Answer 12

I agree with "liorrm". It depends on how you wash your dishes if you are hand washing. In my house we use maybe 4 to 5 gal at most for all of our dishes for the entire day. Both of the sinks get plugged and one it for washing and the other is for rinsing. It is amazing how little water is used if you just plug the sinks.

***I have noticed no one has mentioned the use of water in pre-rinsing the dishes for the dishwasher. A lot of people do that, which means the dishwasher is using even more water then just what it uses for washing. ***

Answer 13

For hand washing the dishes, it depends on how much water you use.

I think that the dishwasher uses less water, in my opinion

Answer 14

It all depends on the amount of dishes you wash and the energy efficiency of your dishwasher.

My dishwasher can hold a day's worth of dishes for our family; I use the short, air dry, energy saving cycle which consumes a total of 4 gallons. By contrast, washing & rinsing up a day's worth by hand would consume a minimum of 15 gallons.

Answer 15

any dishwasher manual will tell you how much water that particular dishwasher uses  and the answer will be very LITTLE water. On the other hand, a dishwasher consumes soap (no or almost no dishwasher soap is environment-friendly) and energy. Plenty of both! Vendors claim that dishwashers are environment friendly BECAUSE they use so little water, but they forget to mention the energy and soap. My advice is : dont run half full dishwasher and , when washing by hand, dont let the tap running and dont use unnecessary amount of soap

Answer 16

dishwasher