Dishwasher/Hand Wash

This is my new cutlery draining basket.

It's from my dishwasher, now defunct after a mere five years, with a "notorious for that model" circuitry defect. It's had very light use as there is only the two of us extending to entertaining once a week I guess but really it all still looks brand new.

This is the stuff of "Planned Obsolescence" in consumer product.

It's too expensive to replace the electronics and better to buy another one apparently.

This is now my new "under the bed rolling rack/basket storage unit"

It's like brand new too.

So is the metal cabinet that houses the whole dishwasher.

But all that is junk now. I could take the metal to the scrap metal guy for recycling but there is still a lot of pieces that are just landfill.

I don't know that in all conscience I can keep buying stuff that is purposely built to fail within a few years so we buy more stuff.

This blog recently posted a lengthy analysis here at Growing Things and Making Things about hand washing vs dishwashers. My hands have become quite roughened and dry with the extra water. Craig said he was missing the dishwasher, but yesterday he told his mother that he didn't really mind not having it (and I mouthed to her "because he hardly ever has to wash up")

I do miss it for jar and bottle washing but I always had hand washing every day anyway.

So I find myself wondering if I will "do a Rhonda" like here, and just pull it out and make a little curtain over the cavity and use it for potato and onion storage instead?

I think to myself, if we were a large family then I think we would need a dishwasher, but then I remember we once were a large family and washing up was what we all took turns in. It was an opportunity for camaraderie between siblings who didn't spend much one on one time with each other. Everyone did it differently, some haphazardly spilling lots of water, some slow but it taught patience and team work. I have lots of memories of my different brothers foibles washing up.

Do you know why people think they need dishwashers? The old "Time" gets trotted out again here. But do they really save you lots of magic time? I'm not so sure of that. I'm not convinced we are as time poor as we make ourselves out to be. I think dishwashers are a part of the whole breakdown in family time schedules. Once upon a time, everyone ate together, including breakfast. There was no parade of plates, bowls, cutlery at any old time of day. Having a dishwasher aids and abets the haphazard schedules and negates the need for people to be with each other.

I do like the way a dishwasher can hide the mess till I'm ready to deal with it. I like the way I can shove everything in quickly when visitors are coming and give the impression of ease and elegance (heaven forbid anyone should find out that my life is not the mirror image of Home and Garden) and I do think it saves my hands and paper thin fingernails that keep shredding and desiccating. But is this enough reason to buy another one. Without any calculations of soap or electricity or water, forget all that, just purely for the fact of it physically sitting in my kitchen, it cost $160/year ($800 machine over 5 years). 

I'm not preaching one way or the other for anyone else's household but it's been a month now and I'm still not inclined to go shopping for another. Never say never though hey!

And if you want another dishwashing story then here is my all time favourite post by Calamity Jane on the Apron Stringz Blog, it's called "Germaphobes and Cleanfreaks Look Away Now"