Be Environmentally Friendly: Save Water When Washing Dishes
Submitted by
Deva Dalporto
Last night's lasagna was great, but dealing with a baked-on, greasy pan the next morning is worse than dealing with a Chianti hangover. And not just for you. It's bad for the environment too. Did you know that the average person uses 100 gallons of water a day?! And almost 10 % of that is wasted in the kitchen. So if you want to be environmentally friendly and save water, check out these 5 simple ways to use less water when washing dishes.
- Scrape food off of the plates rather than rinsing it off. And toss the scraps in the compost or trash, not in the disposal. Running your garbage disposal wastes a lot of water!
- Don't think you have to use the "normal" setting on your dishwasher every time. Most of the time a shorter cycle will do the trick.
- Fill the dishwasher to the brim before running it. You don't want to waste a whole cycle of water on a few sippy cups!
- Don't run the water when you hand-wash dishes. Stop up the sink with warm, soapy water and wash 'em all off in there. Then rinse 'em in a sink or basin of clean, soapless water.
- If you've got a seriously dirty pan, try this trick. Fill the pan with water and six Alka-Seltzer tablets. Let sit for twenty minutes, rinse and voila! You'll have a clean pan ... and you won't ruin your manicure!
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