Short Essay on resource sensitive hand washing vs.

an energy saving dish washer It's an interesting calculation - which uses less resources. I hand wash and I c an say that for an average drainer-full (which is about 1/3 - 1/2 of a FILLED di shwasher). I use: -about 1.5 gallons of luke-warm water -a few squirts of any biodegradable soap I like. Mine is Dr. Bronners - which is a very eco-conscious company (great doc live streaming on Netflix about the ecc entric creator and his son) -my hands That's it. Now I'm not sure about how much water a dish washer uses, but I DO kn ow that the water isn't luke-warm, but hot (so more energy there). I also believ e that the soap used in dish-washers is often individually plastic wrapped table ts of questionable bio-safety (generally). And I know that in addition to water and soap, a dish-washer requires: -a factory to build the machine, which has employees ho commute to work in ameri can fleet average fuel economy cars, which is illuminated with electric lighting and powered by some sort of fossil fuel, and generates a large amount of recycl able and non-recyclable wastes. -the unit is built with, the large rack system made of metal (smelted with elect ricity or fossil fuels directly) or plastic (again from petrochemical sources) -the metal and plastic tubing in the machine -the metal or plastic body -and all the rest of the innards and electronics that contain all manner of heav y metal solder, lead, mercury etc from circuitry -a dept. store or otherwise to display and sell the unit (again staffed by peopl e who commute to work in cars) -transportation to your home (in another gas powered vehicle of some sort) -electricity to operate (generally - yes) And when the machine breaks, it's either tossed in a landfill, partially recycle d (the toxic metals in the circuit boards are generally just shipped the poor co mmunities to be disposed of), or (if the owner is short on $ or more eco-conscio us) repaired. If it is repaired, the parts are fabricated from fossil fuel sourc es, shipped by air, land or sea to distribution centers, re-delivered to your ho use and a repair person drives in a gas powered car to make the repairs. All thi s continues for some time until (inevitably someday), the majority of the plasti cs and toxic circuitry ends up in landfills. Now, you'll see why people who hand-wash in an eco-conscious way (meaning NOT ru nning the water full blast and soaking as you go) find the assertion (by applian ce companies and people who likely haven't actually done any calculating on thei r own but are just parroting what they've heard) that hand washing actually is M ORE resource intensive, a bit difficult to believe. Now, if you were to conduct some test and you were to take the absolute most was teful, brain-dead, niagra falls of hot water, dish-washing moron and clock their energy use. And you were to compare that to one of the very best in eco-sensiti ve dish washing machine designs... AND you saw to it to avoid including all the above-mentioned up-stream energy and resource consumption, then... well, maybe. But to be honest even if you exclude all the inputs except what happens right in your home, a full dishwasher, with about 3 gallons of luke-warm water, and a li ttle bio-soap? Does your personal dishwasher actually come close to that?