Turn down your dishwasher
The dishwasher is, sadly, a fully paid-up, card-carrying member of the Association of Labour-Saving Machines Who Use a Lot of Energy and Thereby Release a Lot of CO2 (ALSMWULETRLCO2 for short). A whopping 80% of the energy a dishwasher guzzles goes towards heating the water, so turn the temperature down to 50C or 55C to make some serious CO2 savings.
More info on washing your dishes without leaving nasty streaks on the environment:
- Dishwasher powders can harm the environment. Use an environmentally friendly product instead like Ecover in the UK; Seventh Generation in the US; or any of these if you’re washing dishes in Australia.
- Failing that, household pets are a great way to get rid of stubborn stains.
More info from the Green Thing wiki >>
More machine power-saving Green Things to do >>
More energy-saving Green Things to do >>
Here’s a thing… doing the dishes by hand can be worse for the environment. A study found that putting on your marigolds and washing a full load of dishes used, on average, 103 litres of water and 2.5kWh of energy, compared to just 15 litres and between 1 and 2 kWh of energy when you use a dishwasher.
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