Same old myth - now with debunkable numbers
I've always been suspicious of the claim that it is better to use a dishwasher than to do dishes by hand. Umbra Fisk's latest item repeats that claim and she gets a round of flack from several commenters including me (#7
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I've been handwashing lately using two sinks about half-full of water. I have a tankless hot water heater, so I have to run the water for about a minute before I get hot water, so about 2.5 litres goes to washing out the sinks with the cold water before I start filling them with the (finally) hot water. Between the wash and the rinse sink, I easily use another 5 litres, and sometimes if things are really mucky, I have to re-fill the wash basin, which means running the water until it's hot again. That's just once a day. My sister always hand-washes, and does them after every meal. But she has an older dishwasher and a solar water heater so it probably is more efficient to wash by hand, even doing them three times a day. And they don't rinse, so they save that way.
With my old tankless hot water heater, it only gave hot water if the tap was running full blast, so if I was washing pots or something that didn't really fit in the sink, I'd have to let the water run start to finish, or turn it off and then let it run until it got hot again.
It takes energy to heat the water either way, and if I'm washing by hand, I need the lights on and the music playing, so I'm using electricity too. *G* I run the dishwasher after we've gone to bed.
It's kind of like the bath vs. shower debate. You always hear that showers are better. Now that there are steam and multiple-head showers, that's not always true. A shallow bath uses less water than a long shower.
All that to say it's not necessarily shilling for the dishwasher industry, although we do have to look at what they say critically.
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Every time I have heard/read someone giving advice on hand vs machine dishwashing they have never talked about what kind of handwashing technique is so wasteful in order to help people judge for themselves. They just always say 'you'll be surprised to learn that machine washing uses less water than hand washing'. The implication seems to be that everyone should get a dishwasher.
Something that most people don't consider is the environmental cost of producing that machine. All the water and energy consumed and pollution produced during the mining, refining, manufacture, advertising, and shipment of said machine. It's still possible for the dishwasher to be more efficient/effective but the difference is much smaller than when you just compare daily usage.
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And the rain barrels I have in town were placed too close to the house and they overflowed in a major rainstorm and caused flooding and mold in my basement. I saved a little water but I used heaps of drywall and flooring instead. So my rainbarrels had a huge life cycle cost. *Sigh*
I work in Environmental Ed, so I try to do the stuff I'm asking other people to do, and it's interesting how it's not always as simple as all those green guides would have you believe.
I'm rambling. Sorry!
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It does require an awful lot of very broad thinking to assess what is really a better way to do things. There are so many caveats that it's easy to become discouraged or to start thinking we really have to go back to ultra lo-tech living. As I said to some friends earlier today, I'm about 80-90% sure that the human race has fucked itself because no one is willing to do what needs to be done (reduce population, give up cars, relocalize economies, restrict air travel, pay a fair price for everything, stop making crap trinkets, eat much less meat and fish, etc). I still have hope that there is 10-20% chance we will slow down climate chaos enough to maintain civilization.
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There's a great article on Treehuger that does exactly that. Their conclusion: "That is to say, it's possible to use less water and energy by hand washing your dishes, but it's not easy."
Something that most people don't consider is the environmental cost of producing that machine.
That's partly because in a lot of cases it is a sunk cost. My parents bought a house - it came with a dishwasher. I've rented half a dozen apartments over the years. At least half of them came with dishwashers. Given that the machines were already there it was pointless not to use them.
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It seems we are pushed into so much waste that way. People are virtually forced into buying monster houses because nobody is selling anything sensible in the desired location. Smaller houses might actually cost more to build because you'd have to commission a custom job instead of getting a predesigned package.
As I said above, my complaint is not so much about whether someone chooses to use a dishwasher but with the promotion of them as always being better and encouraging people to buy more stuff unnecessary stuff.
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