Über Takes Have a take
Life · The kitchen-sink argument · Take No. 040

Rinse dishes before the dishwasher?

Half of households scrub plates clean before putting them in a machine designed to clean plates. The people who make the machines have been begging them to stop for years.

The case for each side, then the verdict. Then the floor is yours.
The case for

Scrape, don't rinse

The case from the manufacturers

  • SensorsModern dishwashers measure how dirty the water is. Pre-rinsed dishes read as clean, and the machine runs a lighter, worse cycle.
  • EnzymesDishwasher detergent is built to grab onto food. With nothing to grab, it works less well.
  • 6,000Gallons of water a year, roughly, wasted by a household that pre-rinses every load, by the usual estimate.
vs
The case for

Rinse first

The case from your mother

  • EggAnd oatmeal, and rice. Some things cement on, and no cycle is getting them off a day later.
  • SmellA machine that sits for three days with food in it is a machine that smells.
  • FilterPre-rinsing keeps the filter clean, and most people have never once cleaned their filter.

Cast your take

——
The verdict

It's Don't rinse. Scrape it, load it, trust the machine.

The rinsers have two real points: stuck-on egg and oatmeal, and the smell of a half-full machine over a long weekend. Scrape hard, run it more often, and both go away.

But the people who build dishwashers are unanimous, and the physics backs them: the machine cleans better with dirty dishes and worse with clean ones, and the rinsing wastes a bathtub of water a week. Scrape, don't rinse.

Disagree? That's what the buttons are for.

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