The dishwashers in my various homes these past 25 years have served as extra plate storage with only occasional running to keep them in working order. Otherwise, we just wash our dishes by hand. I don't see the point of letting your dirty dishes accumulate in the dishwasher or the sink for that matter, when it is a simple and pleasant task to just clean them, dry them, and put them away. The alternative is pretty disgusting. As you cook, simply use spare moments to clean pots and pans as you go. Those can't go in the dishwasher anyway, so nothing gained there. Moreover, you have to clean the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher in any case so that the dishwasher can actually get them clean. Dishwashers feel like a double-taxation chore. You're already scraping off food, running the plates under water, and giving them a brief scrub even if you're using a dishwasher. And then you have to wait for the thing to finish while that dish or utensil is unavailable. Plus the little soap packets or pills or whatever are another hassle.
Just do your dishes by hand. If you have a big family with lots of dishes, what a great opportunity to teach kids some good habits.
- Buy pans that can go in the dishwasher, or just accept they will have a reduced lifespan.
- Buy more utensils and plates than you need. It's just me and my partner but we have something like 20 mugs in the kitchen, 12-18 plates etc. Who cares?
why would I want to clutter my life with more than needed? Why would anyone want to be surrounded by dirty dishes, even in a partially loaded dishwasher? It takes time to fill one up unless you're feeding a lot of people at once. If it's not full, then either it's partially full of dirty dishes, or the sink is, or the dirty dishes are just lying around. All three of those options are disgusting. "Who cares?" Why not just live in filth? Why take out the trash before it overflows? Why clean up food mess from the counter or floor before it attracts vermin? Why bother keeping things neat and tidy?
Dirty dishes, that are <12 hours old, out of sight in a shut dish washer, are hardly problematic.
Doing the dishes just once a day saved water, energy and time.
"Pleasant task" sounds like an oxymoron to me. We have video games now, the spectrum for "pleasant" has shifted and household tasks are toward the bottom.
I don't believe cooking has spare moments, eg there is never a time when I could take out my phone and watch something for 30 seconds. I think that means I am filling the spare moments with efficient task scheduling (chop while sauteing) and washing dishes is just making it take longer.
Different strokes for different folks. The day I stopped having to hand wash dishes because my apartment had a dishwasher was a great feeling. Handwashing dishes is for suckers (and so is pre-rinsing).