This uses more energy than needed. I only try to run full loads.

Running my dishwasher twice as much uses much less power each month than 24U of computers upstairs. It's not really that much in the scheme of things.

I've run my full size dishwasher with a single cup, single bowl, and single spoon in it. More than once.

It's a machine. It's okay to use it.

Ah yes, wasting energy is totally okay as long as there is something else that uses more energy.

So long as Google runs a huge fleet of servers, I sleep with all lights in my house on.

Dishwashers are about not wasting my time and energy, I couldn't care less about water or power savings.

Dirty dishes can be stored inside or outside the dishwasher. I wouldn’t even consider running a dishwasher at less than ~75% load, unless very unusual circumstances.

Which is why I, as a single household, don’t use mine.

I agree that I won't run it unless mostly full or special circumstances (going to cook a lot or have lots of people over) but I don't understand how small households don't use the dishwasher! Assuming you are eating most meals at home we (2 people) run the dishwasher about daily on average. Between pots, pans, food containers and plates I find it full up quickly. I think people who don't use it are just afraid to put cookware inside. Except for a few particular items you can get almost everything dishwasher-safe these days.

And even if you do have a period between cooking where it does sit for a few days running a dishwasher even a quarter full uses less water, power and soap than washing by hand. So doing that occasionally if it is starting to smell isn't an issue.

Two person house here, I just wash the dishes by hand. It doesn't take much effort, just a few minutes after a meal, they always come out exactly as clean as I want, and you can wash the dishes you prepped with while you cook (as long as it isn't an attention-intensive dish). It's also is friendlier to our painted ceramic bowls we usually eat out of.

Dish washers didn't seem worth it for two people in my opinion, either the dishes built up inside it and food dries on them to the point where the dishwasher didn't clean them properly, or I ran the washer with hardly anything inside it and felt like I wasted a lot of soap and water. Maybe it was simply too big of a dishwasher and that was part of the problem.

Dishwashers use much less soap and water than handwashing.

We had a high end home rental for a vacation a few years ago that had multiple dishwashers that were just being used as cabinets! It creates a whole new set of clean/dirty problems.

I assumed this was just a scam being pushed by dish soap companies in their commercials. I didn't think anyone actually ran mostly empty dish washers.

Dish soap and water are not free, even if you consider them cheap. I usually run my full dish washer once or twice a week. A regular container of dish washer pods has a little more than 60 pods and cost $20. Ignoring the water cost and assuming I always wash it twice a week I'm spending at most $40 dollars per year on dish washing pods, usually less.

If I follow your advice to the letter I'm running the machine three times a day, everyday so I'm spending $30 a month or $360 a year. Even once a day it's still $120. And ignoring the water cost.

All to not have to unload the dish washer when it's clean or spend an extra 15 seconds checking when lazy? Total waste of money.

Pods are ridiculous, it isn't difficult to squirt or pour soap in the holder in a reasonable amount. Buying non-pod soap is way cheaper

If you're doing full loads of laundry or dishes there isn't a difference. In the case of laundry you're probably using too much detergent if you're eyeballing it and using the same amount as pods if you're measuring.

Or the third option: measuring and using less than their recommended amount