There are a lot of variables involved when measuring hand washing and automatic dishwasher cleaning of dishes.

But if you’re feeling guilty about your nifty kitchen appliance, take comfort in the University of Bonn’s study. This careful study included 113 participants and attempted to control as many variables as possible.

The German study found that dishes cleaned by modern dishwashers were not only cleaner, but that the dishwasher uses less water, energy and soap. Plus, there’s the significant time savings involved with dishwashers. And that’s important if you want to read your favorite blogs!

Get more details from Bonn: A European Comparison of Cleaning Dishes by Hand. The first article under “Publications” explains the experiment in detail.

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The American Red Cross recommends washing hands with soap for at least 15 seconds. If you wash your hands seven times a day, that’s 105 seconds of clean, wasted water added to your water bill. If you have a family of four, that’s 420 seconds of running water down the drain each day.

Some tips on turning off while scrubbing:

• Wet hands, apply soap, then use your elbow to turn off lever-style or long-handled faucets. Those are my favorite faucets for that very reason. You can easily turn them back on with your elbow again.

•If you have the type of faucet you have to turn, wet hands, then turn water off before you begin scrubbing. Yes, you may get a bit of soap on the faucet handle when you turn it back on to rinse, but you can always wipe that away with a towel.

Turning water off while you scrub may actually have another benefit besides saving water. Running water may make you rush through hand washing, and that’s not always a good thing. Scrubbing the top of your hands and between fingers is also recommended.

Do you turn off the water while scrubbing?

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Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in July 2008

Post from: Tree Hugging Family