Stop Washing Your Hands: New Dishwashers Save More Water Than You Can
Washing dishes by hand before putting them in the dishwasher has a great psychological benefit. Your dishes appear cleaner and you are less likely to have to wash them again. You can also waste gallons of water loading .
As the Washington Post highlights, a wide range of experts, including Consumer Reports , the EPA’s Energy Star program and the National Resource Protection Council, suggest that using your dishwasher will save more water in both the short and long term. If you have an old car, you can save water by using the most efficient and water-saving methods, but most of us don’t. Even if you do, newer Energy Star certified machines only consume 3-5 gallons. It’s hard to beat. As NRDC explains:
As a basis, remember that water flows from your tap at a rate of 3 to 5 gallons per minute. New Energy Star compliant dishwashers use only 3 gallons of water and 1 kilowatt hour of energy per load. New machines not only use less water and energy, but they also clean dishes better, and manufacturers recommend not washing dishes by hand before loading the washing machine. This practice can result in a waste of up to 20 gallons of water, while a machine rinse cycle requires 1 to 2 gallons. But if you need to rinse the dishes ahead of time, use cold water instead of hot water.
This is in part because dishwashers have gotten better over time. Older machines can use up to 15 gallons per load, which is not the best option, but still better than most of us rinsing each dish by hand. There are other factors to consider, such as the fact that dishwashers can use much hotter water for your dirty dishes than human hands can handle. You can read more about the comparison below.
The Great Dishwasher Debate | Council for the Protection of National Resources via The Washington Post