small steps, smaller footprints

 

Many Americans have dishwashers but elect to not use them. Most Americans who have a dishwasher use the default cycle with heated dry. It may come as a surprise, but using your dishwasher actually saves water and energy over hand washing your dishes, because of the minimal hot water usage of dishwashers. It is important, however, to not use your dishwasher's heated dry cycle to make doing dishes even more energy efficient. There is no need to use the heated dry cycle unless you are in some race against the clock to dry your dishes. It adds a significant amount of time to the wash cycle and increases wear on your machine, shortening its life. Instead, simply change the setting on your dishwasher and open the dishwasher door a few inches at the end of each cycle to allow your dishes to air dry. To avoid unnecessary hot water usage and further boost your efficiency in the kitchen, stop pre-rinsing your dishes before placing them in the wash. Just scrape off the food debris and you are done. Your dishwasher can handle the rest. Doing this along with changing the setting on your dishwasher to skip the heated dry and making sure to only run full loads will save you a couple of kilos of CO2 per year. The impact of committing to Action 8 is small relative to the other Actions, but this action is simple. Every lifestyle change does matter, even if the carbon savings are small. Remember, it is the aggregate benefit of all of the Actions that makes your effort truly noticeable. Most of the CarbonCurb Actions save you less than a percent of your annual emissions. Collectively, the Actions save literal tons of CO2. The impact of Action 8 is:

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