- Body of teen missing since 2008 found in chimney
- Meet the teacher who made headlines walking his students home daily
- Husband weeps when he finds out wife is pregnant after 17 years of trying
- Picture of teacher walking children home from school goes viral
- Hero Army vet Chris Mintz charges at Oregon gunman, shot trying to save classmates
You're wasting water
For a lot of people, the typical after-meal routine includes rinsing off the dishes before they're placed in the dishwasher. Well, you should stop doing that.
First of all, you're wasting water. That pre-rinse uses a lot of water for something the dishwasher is going to do all over again -- and much more efficiently.
Read more: Scientists say a messy bed is a healthier bed
You can try to do it more efficiently than the dishwasher, but...
Washing dishes by hand doesn't make them cleaner
The sponge you use to wash dishes by hand is probably really dirty. In fact, it's likely dirtier than your toilet seat. Sponges get wet, stay wet and collect bacteria. One survey that studied kitchen sponges and dish towels found that 10% of them contained Salmonella. To clean a sponge, just throw it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Even without all those dirty dishes piled in it, your kitchen sink likely isn't very clean either. "There's more E. coli in a kitchen sink than in a toilet after you flush it, according to Dr. Charles Gerba, a microbiologist and professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Let the dishwasher do its job
You have a dishwasher for a reason.
When you wash dishes by hand, you probably use lukewarm water -- so you don't burn your hands off -- which is understandable. But when you do that, you aren't really cleaning much. Our hands can't take the heat required to truly clean dishes to the point of being bacteria free. Dishwashers use water that's around 140 to 145 degrees Fahrenheit.
If you don't have a dishwasher...
There are ways to making hand-washing the dishes a cleaner and more eco-friendly process.
First, clean the sink. "Clean the sink basin with a disinfectant product made for the kitchen," says Dr. Gerba. "Vinegar and lemon juice can clean some bacteria, but they can't clean really bad pathogens, so the Environmental Protection Agency doesn't recommend using them as an alternative."
And if you want to reduce the amount of water used, here are some ways to make hand-washing more eco-friendly.
ClarkHoward.com is America’s #1 resource for all things money.
Learn how to keep more of what you make at
.
Money in your pocket. Advice you can trust.
