Yeah was a really, really interesting social change. From the point of view of the middle class (~10% of the population of the wealthier nations?) when the appliances came in the station of women of that class went backwards. Servants became expensive and women who, post-childbirth had high-status and important roles running charities, political parties and such no longer had enough time for it. The suffragettes now had to do the work (assisted by appliance) of the house as well as run it.

Not many of us would reverse the changes that came with widespread home appliance availability and adoption on either a personal or societal level but every significant change comes at a cost to someone to whom you might well be sympathetic is something worth remembering when looking forward.

I think the distinction is we have 50X more clothing to wash. And it's partly because washing is so easy. I have a family of four and spend a lot of time folding clean clothes.

>Even if you're careful with water usage while hand washing, I think a decent dishwasher will beat you.

I once ran the dishwasher with the outlet hose in a bucket because the drain pump was on its way out. I expected to have to empty it several times, but at the end of the cycle there was less water in it than I would use to fill a washing-up bowl to do the dishes by hand (and the amount of dishes it cleaned might have required more than one bowl).

And it's disgusting and water where I live is cheap and plentiful. Hate water austerity imposed on everyone because of megacities and people living where people shouldn't live.

Thanks. I read the treehugger link—pretty convincing overall. Not sure why my question was downvoted tho. (Not accusing you)

You have to heat water to wash your dishes ? What kind of gravy sauce are you cooking in your pot.

Most people use as much water rinsing their dishes to almost clean before putting them in the dishwasher.

Very few people are running the faucet anywhere near full blast when dish-washing.

My faucet is very slow, about ~1gpm (I timed it once upon a time because I wanted to be able to put a number to how slow it is). When hand washing I run at maybe 1/4 or less of that. Everyone else in my household runs it at less.

I grew up handwashing too but I disagree with your assertion.

Firstly, you can't wash with cold water because soap doesn't activate with cold water, hot water also kills bacteria and helps cut through grease.

Fats themselves are hydrophobic and without activated soap you wont get them off... enjoy your "filmy" dishes.

Second, humans expend a lot more energy than you think. The act of standing and using our arms releases varying amounts depending on physical fitness but averages somewhere in the 1kg/h ballpark. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjphysiol/50/2/50_2_199...

Dishwashers use about 1800 Watts and are commonly run for 30 minutes, the average co2 in the USA is 0.92lbs per kWh.

Meaning it's _basically_ the same.

Then there's the freshwater usage, which is the real kicker, because dishwashers use significantly less freshwater, and freshwater filtering is the largest environmental impact of washing dishes (not the direct co2 output).

> Another thing people often forget about dishwashers: you're supposed to pre-scrub the hard shit off the dishes.

Once you’ve removed the bones and massive solids, the modern dishwasher can do an astounding job on the rest. Put a little detergent in the prewash (or on a Bosch, just in the tub) and let the machine do the work. (I also grew up washing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. It’s almost never needed now, but old habits die hard.)

Modern dishwashers encourage you to do nothing more than scrape off any leftover food, there's not "you are supposed to scrub".

(essentially, the instructions are to remove the same things from the dishes you would remove if hand washing them in a sink with no disposal...)