If it is water that you want to save, then dishwasher is more green than hand washing. Research shows that an energy star dishwasher uses only 4 gallons of water, where as hand washing uses about 16 gallons of water. Now compare that to a non-energy star dishwasher, it still only uses about 6 gallons of water. But don’t be alarmed when you open you electricity bill and find how much your bill is. It is definitely more cheaper to hand wash than use the dishwasher. Typically you can finish hand washing the dishes in about 15 minutes, but the same load can take up to 2 hours in a dishwasher.
In an article from Treehugger there was some research done and here are the facts:
Things that need to be taken into consideration while comparing are – Water use, Energy use and Carbon foot print.
Dishwasher vs Hand washing
Using the Dishwasher uses only 4 to 6 gallons of water depending if it’s an energy star or non energy star appliance. Second the energy used to heat the water. Since it only uses 4 to 6 gallons of water, the energy required to heat is much less than hand washing. Finally the carbon foot print is much less when using the dishwasher, since heating 6 gallons of water emits much less CO2 into the atmosphere than hand washing, which uses 16 gallons of water.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, if you can wash the same amount of dishes with only 6 gallons of water, then that would be the most greenest choice, but in realty that is not possible. Therefore, hands-down using the dishwasher is the most greenest way to wash dishes.
