How about not putting so much freaking food on your plate in the first place? My plates and bowls are completely empty when I am done, if I need more I go back for it.

Strange how they tend to create environmental laws to fail.

Either they can sell it but you are not allowed to use it - or you are allowed to use it but they can't sell it!

phosphates are supposed to be bad for gender development in little boys.

"If you want to learn something, try to teach it. If you want to understand something try to change it." (anonymous)

You all sound like a bunch of Republicans. Dishwashers use less water than hand washing. Aren't you guys environmentalists? Most new washers say to scrape off food then put them in without pre-washing. In California, with a drought running rampant, some calculus has to be made to see what the better choice is. Also, going from 9% to .5% may be a mistake. Perhaps somewhere in between will work well enough while reducing the environmental impact.

Oh, and will the bigoted Native Americans please stop their racist nastiness?

No real need for electric dishwashers, although convenient when washing dishes of many people. I'm single and only have my own dishes, maybe an occasional guest too, and it's certainly better to wash the dishes myself, by hand. For very few people or not many dishes, etc., to wash, it's a waste of money to buy a dishwasher and another waste of money to use electricity for what can be done for free. My parents and brother, who lives with the parents, are three people and use a dishwasher, but not for washing. They only installed one when we built the house to give it a little added value, but used it maybe once or twice since the house was built in 1978 or 1979. They have it next to the kitchen sink and after eating breakfast and lunch they rinse the dishes and glasses well and put them in the dishwasher to drip-dry; washing them by hand after having supper each night. When I'm there, I do the same, but usually wash the dishes, utensils and glassware that I used once every few days; just rinsing them very well under hot water as hot as it gets and it gets plenty hot, before putting them in the dishwasher. When I have meats or eggs, then I'll give them a little soap treatment when rinsing them and for getting rid of bacteria, but don't bother with soap when not eating meats or eggs. Vegetables, rice, etc., aren't a problem; hot water's enough, I've found.

For grease, plain or white vinegar should probably suffice to cut through this.

For me, a normal sized bottle of dish soap last plenty of months. The one I have now was bought first week of Nov. 2008 and only around half has been used so far.

But while all-natural soaps like herbal ones are usually too expensive to buy here in Quebec, Canada, I saw good prices down in the U.S. and imagine some of these would also cut through grease. I tried one that was peppermint-based and very strong, as well as highly concentrated, easily dilutable, perhaps being able to make 4 or 5 bottles for every bottle purchased. Perhaps that's one that would cut through grease. People trying that soap out should beware though, it'll burn the skin on your hands, and worse for skin in more tender or sensistive areas of the body, so it needs to be sufficiently diluted. It's made by a business in Maine and is found in many organic and natural food stores. The business makes other varieties of herbal soaps, Rose, Lavender, and more, so if the peppermint one doesn't cut through grease, then maybe one of these others does.

I've also heard of mixing some white vinegar with dish soaps, but don't know more about the topic. However, a woman told me a couple of weeks ago that white vinega is a good cleaner, very good for glass, so for windows, mirrors, etc., and also works great when combined with baking soad for clearing or cleaning out drains, like those of kitchen sinks, etc. I forget the exact proportions of baking soda and vinegar to use, but maybe a half cup of the baking soda and a cup of vinegar. She says she uses this and it works greatly, but after letting the combined baking soda and vinegar work for maybe 10 minutes or so, then flushes with hot water.

That makes for a very inexpensive way of clearing or cleaning drains, and given it works for this, then maybe the same combination would work for cutting through grease on pots and pans too. It certainly can't do any harm to give it a try anyway.

I don't know the science behind mixing vinegar and baking soda, for vinegar is acidic, while baking soda is alkaline, and mixing acids and alkalines causes a neutralising effect, turning to water. But vinegar works for cleaning, is disinfectant, is environmentally safe, etc., and combined with baking soda works for drains. And baking soda is environmentally safe, plus what's not used for cleaning can be put, opened, in the refrigerator for deodorising.

There surely are all-natural, including organic, products that'll do the "trick" for all cleaning jobs or tasks. Ancestors didn't have anything else!

What do they use in the E.U.?
We are also running short of water so just re-washing and soaking in tubs of boiling water is not really a solution. Do the washers need to be re-designed or just the detergent?

Just let the dirty dishes soak in the sink in water, hard or soft. Then they are easy to wash by hand or the dishwasher.
Boy, are we ever spoiled.

Personally I see a dishwasher as a waste of money - they are more for "sanitizing" than actually cleaning.

I had to switch to Nature Clean Fruit and Veggie wash because they added Borax to their dish soap (which I was using before). Neither the F&VW nor the old dish soap were good for the really greasy pots and pans, but how often to you have to wash those anyway - unless you are cooking with ground beef, sausages or bacon.

If all you are using the frying pan for is french toast and perogies - you don't really have to wash it for a while. If all you are using the pan for is chicken and fries in the oven, it can be reused as well. And when they need to be wash, you can use the stronger Simply Clean F&VW which makes you too dizzy if you use it for everything but just gives you a slight buzz if you used it to wash pots and pans.

You will have to throw the dish cloth on the stairs to be washed after with Simply Clean F&VW (because keeping that around will make it hard for you to keep your eyes open watching TV after a few hours. With the Nature Clean F&VW there is no problem that way at all.

The recommendation for getting airfreshener off clothes is soaking it in powdered milk over night, wrinsing it then washing it - something like that dish cloth should be easily done going through that process once.

As far as the dishes go, the Simply Clean F&VW comes off glass and plastic and metal quite easily with a gentle wrinse so requires no further cleaning after you use the product.

I've never had or used a dishwasher before, washing my dishes after each meal instead letting them pile up after several meals. That's how they really become crusty. Using a metal scouring pad helps, too.

Gee, have they ever tried washing dishes by hand?

Hard water is another outcome of idiotic industrial capitalism, thanks to the elites' designs to dominate nature. Native Americans didn't have any problem with hard water and thus no problem washing things, thus no need for high-toxic capitalist soap.

Native Americans, and people worldwide respectful of nature, rely on surface water, rainwater, that hasn't picked up massive minerals like well water has on its way through the rocks, and the coal, sulfur and heavy metal seams.

Respect nature and you will see the answer to this and many other homestead water related questions is: On each homestead, rainwater diversion into cisterns, and subsequent processing via solar disinfection for wash water and/or solar distillation for drinking.

As with all ideas that serve the people optimally, the elites will reject homestead rainwater cisterns and solar disinfection and try to confuse the people.

As it turns out, dogs are happy to do some chores around the house--most notably, licking clean plates and bowls so mommy doesn't have to scrub hard.

Yes adding vinegar is suppose to soften hard water, thus boosting cleaning power. Vinegar is a wonderful non-toxic cheap ingredient that has many uses for cleaning. Totally rediculous that the folks in Spokane have to go to such measures to obtain phosphate dish detergent. Why can't the City of Spokane educate their citizens? And why aren't they rinsing their dishes before they wash them? Food-incrusted? That's really silly. Sounds like a lot of old, lazy habits that may take a while to break. Why the need for perfectly shiny clean dishes? It's all those T.V. commercias selling products that amaze you with sparkling clean dishes. It has turned people into being clean-obsessed. It's gotten so bad that everyone now is using cleaners with added "antibacterial" ingredients, like triclosan, further polluting our waters. Everyone has become dissenfectant-crazy and clean-obsessed. My mother lives in Los Angeles - very hard water - and she only uses those green alternative dish soaps for her dishes, and her dishes are really clean. I think the trick is that she acatually uses a little muscle power with the help of a scrubbing brush and sponge.

we are so spoiled....aren't we

Why use dishwashers at all? One came with the house I bought, but it sits unused. Same with the central AC except for perhaps 2 or 3 days a year in which a small window unit would actually be more efficient.

---USAn---

Wow, just rinse the crusted food off your dishes first. If you have time to drive to Idaho then you can add a few moments to your dishwashing time each day. It really won't kill ya. If it works for the hard water in Wyoming, then I'm sure it will work in Washington as well.

But Joe is onto something, you could add vinegar or something. My wife would know what to add to combat hard water. She's not around at the moment though so does someone else know for sure? Nonetheless, I don't know what needs to be added because it's really not even necessary.

Might adding some vinegar to the rinse water help?

Joe