While hand-washing appears to consume no electricity, it requires a tremendous amount of energy

to clean water for you to use.

So, in terms of the environment, a dishwasher still uses less energy than hand-washing.

According to one study at the University of Bonn in Germany, in general, the households

with dishwasher used on average 50% less water and 28% less energy per cleaned item compared

with households not owning a dishwasher.

And according to United States Environmental Protection Agency, if you have an Energy Star

dishwasher you can potentially save 55,000 gallons of water over 11 years (which is the

average lifespan of an Energy Star dishwasher), compared to washing by hand.