Which is better for the environment?: Dishwasher vs. Paper plates.?

Question

The dishwasher and/or sink uses water...

But paper plates have to be thrown out....

Which is better to use?

Answer 1

dishwater

Answer 2

Dishwasher defiantly! up-grade to an energy efficient one, in some states its a tax write off. Paper plates end up in land fills. You can also set up your dish washer to recycle Grey water to be even more efficient...  check out the link

Answer 3

dish washer it is more sanitary and with out using all those chemicals is bad for the trees

long live the dishwasher

Answer 4

Paper plates not so nice but OK there are more like plastic now,dishwashers are not a good thing to have anymore so I guess washing up in the sink is best ,rather sad when you have a dishwasher though

Answer 5

I would have to say dishwasher...because even though it uses water, that water is processed through a wastewater treatment facility, so can be reused...however, most paper (which is the number one municipal solid waste in the United States), is put into landfills, which fills them up, causing more land to be degraded to store wastes!!

* HOPE THIS HELPS *

Answer 6

Dishwater. All your water goes to a water cleaning facility anyways, so you might as well use normal plates. And even though paper plates are biodegradable they may still contain harmful chemicals in them that were used in their manufacture. Reuse is always better than disposal.

Answer 7

for me its better to use dishwasher. by using paper plates is not advisable because the more we use paper is the more we cut trees in making paper plates. the lesser the trees will affect our ecological imbalance.

Answer 8

The dishwasher -paper plates just end up in landfills, and many, perhaps most of them are not even made of recycled paper!

Yes, dishwasher's use water and electricity, but the water is treated and is able to be reused.  

Using a dishwasher is actually more efficient than washing dishes by hand-washing a full load in a dishwasher will use less water than washing each dish individually, especially when using some of the newer, more efficient dishwashers.

You also have to consider some of the less obvious impacts of paper plates-as disposable items, you have to continually replace them, meaning more driving to the store, more shipping to the store and more waste removal.