Washing Dishes

[Chickadee]

Having just pulled the trigger on a villa for June I was standing at my kitchen sink washing dishes last night thinking about being on St. John. Wasting water, as we mainlanders are apt to do without much thought, I wondered...

What is the most water-efficient way to wash dishes? Dishwasher (assuming full)? Fill the sink, wash all, rinse all? Fill the sink, wash one, rinse one? Wet, scrub, rinse, repeat?

How do you who live on the island do it?

[VayCay]

What is the most water-efficient way to wash dishes? Dishwasher (assuming full)? Fill the sink, wash all, rinse all? Fill the sink, wash one, rinse one? Wet, scrub, rinse, repeat?

How do you who live on the island do it?

I would say fill both sides half way...soap in one...rinse water in other

unless of course there is a dishwasher...then use the "ecno" setting and run it full...

also....Does your villa have a Spa?? because you could just do the dishes in the spa and let the filter take care of the food particles. chlorine is a great sanitizer!


haha...

hope this helps

[RickG]

With 2 or 4 we never have enough dishes to do a dish washer full, so we do the same approach as VayCay. I just don't want to leave the dish washer with some dirty dishes for 3 days - ants! With 8 people the dish washer makes sense and we run it full every other day or so.

We try to use the same cup all day or 8 people can run through 64 cups pretty soon.

Cheers, RickG

[Ksea]

I like to use paper plates and cups so I don't have to worry about dishes. Just my coffee mug and a spoon. We don't cook much at the villa.

[chicagoans]

Dishwashers generally use less water per dish than washing in the sink, but if the DW is less than half full and there's no "quick wash" or similar setting it probably would be a waste. If it has a rinse only cycle you could run that and then wait until you fill it up to run a full cycle.

If I have to do dishes by hand I fill my largest dish used (pasta pot, mixing bowl, etc.) with the water to wash everything else. Then I wash out my wash pot last. If it takes awhile for the washing water to get hot, I try to save the water that's running in the meantime for things like making ice, watering plants, rinsing out bathing suits, etc. You could also just save that water in the sink for your rinse water.

I avoid paper products unless I can recycle them.

[bert]

Wet, scrub, rinse, repeat. Turn off water between each step. More scrubbing = less water.

peace.... bert