Believe me, if I had the option, I would stop washing dishes by hand immediately! No problem! But I have never had the luxury of having a dishwasher.

When my two sisters and I were kids and people would ask my Mom why she didn't have a dishwasher, she would always reply, "Because I have three of them!" She would punctuate what she thought was a very clever joke with a self-satisfied cackle that used to make us roll our eyes all the way into the back of our heads!

The reasons why you should, if you have a newer dishwasher, are many, according to a whole lot of science-type, smart guys at organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council, the EPA's Energy Star Program, Consumer Reports and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, to name but a few. The bottom line is that today's dishwashers are so energy-and-water efficient that there is no need to wash dishes by hand.

This is especially true if you are then going to load them into a dishwasher! Yes you still need to scrape off all food particulates and should only run a dishwasher when you have a full load. But rinsing off the dishes in anything but cold water and then putting them in the dishwasher is essentially using twice the water and energy. Dishwashers, (in particular Energy Star rated ones) have become extraordinarily efficient due to improving appliance standards, so it is nearly impossible to hand wash the same amount of dishes with less water and using less energy to heat the water.

Jonah Schein with the EPA's Water Sense progam says:

In order to wash the same amount of dishes that can fit in a single load of a full size dishwasher and use less water, you would need to be able to wash eight full place settings and still limit the total amount of time that the faucet was running to less than two minutes"

 

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy adds,

 Studies are showing more and more that, when used to maximize energy-saving features, modern dishwashers can outperform all but the most frugal hand washers"

You're still thinking, "Oh yeah, but how clean are they, really?" Aren't you? Most dishwashers heat water to between 140 and 145 degrees which thoroughly sanitizes your tableware. Now unless you have dish gloves (like the pretty purple ones I wear), or armadillo-tough hands like my mom and grandmother used to have, that is really hot water!

I swear to God that Grammie used to boil the water before she would fill the rinse tub and then she'd shout at us, "Well, get in there before they get cold!" Cold? We should have been so lucky! Because we usually visited Grammie during the heat of summer, our dish washing and drying sessions in her non-air-conditioned home, with surface-of-the-sun hot water resulted in sweating like a pig and sporting bright red lobster claws when finished! But I digress.

Of course you'll still have to wash large pots and pans by hand, but if you have a decent dishwasher, quit washin' yer darn dishes by hand, yer wastin' energy, (yers and the electric company's) and water (yers and the utility company's) and you pay fer it twice!! So knock it off!

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