Mom Goes Green

So the whole “dead washer” thing got me thinking about other washing… dishwashing.

For some reason, ever since my daughter was a baby, I have felt compelled to wash my kids’ dishes, cups, utensils, etc. by hand. I suppose my logic has to do with the feeling that when I scrub them by hand, I can insure they get really, really clean, and they don’t sit around in a dishwasher, picking up cooties from other stuff.  Yeah, may be ridiculous, but it’s made sense to me for the past 6-1/2 years!

So I set out to see how wasteful that really is.  Lo and behold, in my newest quest of dishwasher vs. hand-washing, I learned a lot.  So, here I am to share this with you too!…

First, and most compelling:  newer dishwashers use only half the energy, one-sixth the water and much less soap, compared to hand-washing.  The cleanliness factory also favors dishwashers (BAH! I’m wrong again!).

Just think about how much water you waste waiting for the right temperature when you’re hand- washing?! I was guilty of that, big time.  And my husband is NOTORIOUS for wandering around the kitchen, doing other things, while water is still running! (… that remains a small (huge) pet peeve of mine, dear husband!)

You can also make your process more eco-friendly by skipping the pre-wash cycle, only running full loads and skipping the heat dry (that ALONE, saves 50% of the energy use!).

I understand that there may be methods of hand-washing that use very small amounts of water.  I also know that, in order to get truly clean items out of the dishwasher, they do need a degree of cleaning and elbow-grease before they reach the dishwasher, but this should be done quickly and immediately, before all of the food gets dried on … (oh yummy! It’s that “cootie factor” I always feared!)

So, SHOCKER!  Appliance wins this battle!  I’m going to give so much hand-washing a break and try to use the appliance exclusively for a while and see how it goes.  “Dishwasher” is one of the ‘Mom titles’ I’m willing to give up.

Yep…dead.  It was loaded up with my kids’ laundry and the damn thing wouldn’t spin.  It was such a joy to wring every item by hand so I could put them in the dryer (so, wringing?  That’s how they used to do it, huh?).

Of course, it was only one year beyond warranty(!), and the repair would have been so costly the only choice was to buy a new one. Fabulous.

The irony of the whole event is the education I received in my quest to find a new washer.  Did you know that top-loading washers require massive amounts of energy and water?… something I never thought about for a second, and I walked into the store expecting that’s what I would buy.  Was I ever wrong.

Front-loading washers are such an environmentally-conscious choice and I had no idea. I’ll wrap this in a nutshell:  They require 60% less water, 50% less energy to heat the water, hold larger loads (because there’s no agitator - so you will need to do fewer loads) and they spin faster (extracting more water and reducing the dry time in your dryer) and in turn, consume less dryer energy.  I love it!

If every U.S. household replaced their washer with a front-loading washer, the water saved each year could fill more than one million Olympic-sized swimming pools. ONE MILLION.

Meet my new washer…isn’t she pretty?   Sure, it cost more, but over time the savings in water and energy will balance it out, and now that I “know what I know”, I wouldn’t dream of NOT making the environmental choice.

Of course, one of my concerns was what happens to my poor, old, dead washer.  I am happy to report that the retailer has a local contract and it will be picked up and all recyclable parts and materials WILL be recycled.  Whew!  Without that kind of answer, I don’t think I would have bought from them…

…so, I just got greener…and since I am a green mom, I suppose the death of my “water & energy sucking” washing machine was destiny, with a splash of fate.  No problem.  I’ll take that wake-up call.