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Men's Journal

Is Using a Dishwasher More Efficient?

Emily Fazio
2 min read

Are you still hand washing dishes? More like hand-wringing frustration. From scraping leftovers to scrubbing stains, taking care of your plates, bowls, and glassware is a labor-intensive, skin-irritating, mind-numbing chore. Not to mention, it uses a lot of water.

We invited the experts at Cascade to help us determine if using a dishwasher can help save consumers money and protect our water supply. Morgan Eberhard, Senior Scientific Communications Manager steps in with the facts:

Reduce Water Waste: Water Conservation Tips

  • Did you know that the average person spends 11 minutes a day washing dishes under a running tap, using up to 24 gallons of water? In contrast, Energy Star-certified dishwashers only use 4 gallons of water per load. It might sound like a lot, but you use that same amount (4 gallons of water) every two minutes as you hand wash your dishes—and most people spend more than 2 minutes at the sink*. If you use the dishwasher to clean dishes, that's 80% less water compared to hand-washing dishes!

  • If you run your dishwasher every night, you cut down on water usage. Even with a less-than-full load, you can save up to 140 gallons of water per week compared to handwashing. **Additionally, since you’re using less hot water, thus less energy to heat the water, people can save on their energy bills from the utility company!

Save Time, Use the Dishwasher

  • People waste a year and a half** of their lives hand-washing dishes. That’s 200 hours** a year.

  • Consumer are STILL doing extra work. 86% continue to pre-rinse/pre-wash leftover food scraps, 68% are still, manually drying to avoid the drying rack (68%), and 57% end up re-washing their dirty dishes at least once a week, often because their detergent doesn't do a good-enough job getting larger items and plates clean. Using the dishwasher cuts those time-intensive chores.

  • Lots of people don’t trust their dishwashers to get the job done and don’t realize the detergent you use matters. "Cascade Platinum Plus was formulated to help eliminate the need to pre-wash or pre-rinse and lets your dishwasher get the job done and be the dishwasher," reminds Eberhard.

*Hand washing uses up to 2.2 gallons of water every minute; data provided by Cascade

**When handwashing 3x per day; data provided by Cascade

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