Time and time again we hear about the green credentials of owning a dishwasher. There is no denying it’s a greener option, especially considering how much water it saves compared to washing the dishes by hand (between 30 and 40 litres per wash, if you were wondering).
We all love doing our bit for the planet, but if you are anything like me you might find yourself asking ‘what does owning a dishwasher actually do for me?’
Well what if I told you that owning a dishwasher gives you the most valuable gift of all, something that money just can’t buy; the gift of time! It might seem inconsequential; it only takes a few extra minutes to wash the dishes by hand. However over the course of weeks, months and years these minutes can add up.
I have conducted an experiment over the past couple of weeks to try and find out exactly how much extra time it takes to stand in front of the sink instead of using the dishwasher. During week one, I washed the dishes by hand, and during week two, I used the dishwasher. To oversee the experiment, my ever supportive girlfriend was stood by with a stop watch in her hand and a look of bemusement on her face (mainly because I was voluntarily doing the housework).
So with the results in, I can tell you that on average it takes 11 minutes, 17 seconds longer to wash the dishes by hand than to load and unload the dishwasher. I’ve had the calculator working overtime, and you might be surprised to see how the figures add up...
If it takes 11 minutes, 17 seconds longer to clean the dishes by hand...
and the average person washes their dishes 6 nights a week....
and the average person in the UK enjoys 22,411 days in their adult life...
it means you will be hand washing the dishes 19,209 times!
That is 252,871 minutes longer doing the dishes than if you used a dishwasher.
That’s 4215 hours
That‘s 176 days
That’s 25 weeks
That’s nearly 6 months extra cleaning time!!
6 months of your life stood behind the kitchen sink washing dishes! We all have a point in our day where we wish that we could just have one minute to ourselves, and here is a humble kitchen appliance that is offering us a full 6 months.
My mind is already racing with ideas on what I would do if I was given 6 months of free time. Learn to play the guitar, travel Europe, maybe write that detective novel I’ve always talked about. Time is a commodity that us Brits are famously short of, so maybe it’s time we start taking back those odd minutes here and there and start spending them with the people we love, doing things we enjoy.
People much wiser than me have said that you can’t put a value on time, but my monthly pay slip tells me differently. So while the calculator is out I thought I would crunch these figures too.
The UK minimum wage tells us that the absolute lowest value of an adult’s time is £6.08 an hour, which would mean that the 6 months you spend in front of the sink is worth a minimum of
£25,627.20
Not bad for an appliance that you can buy for under £200! In fact, more than enough to pay for those guitar lessons...