Saving Water and Energy by Avoiding the Dishwasher on Sukkos

When people think about the work of Sukkos, they often imagine cooking, schlepping food into the sukkah, or setting the table. But the hidden burden of Sukkos meals is what happens afterward — the endless dishwashing. Every seudah leaves behind mountains of dirty dishes, and for most families, that means either running the dishwasher over and over or standing at the sink for hours.

Here’s the reality: even the most efficient dishwasher uses 3–5 gallons of water per cycle. Older models can use double that. On Sukkos, with two to three meals every single day, your dishwasher might run multiple times just to keep up. Multiply that across all the days of Yom Tov and Chol Hamoed Sukkos, and the water waste is enormous. For larger families or hosts with many guests, this number skyrockets.

And what about Yom Tov itself? Many households avoid using the dishwasher on Yom Tov, which means the only option is hand-washing dishes. Hand-washing is not just tiring — it’s incredibly wasteful. Studies show that washing dishes by hand can use up to 27 gallons of water per load. Every rinse, every soak, every scrub adds up. By the end of Sukkos, you may have wasted hundreds of gallons of water just keeping up with the meals.

By switching to plastic plates for Sukkos, you avoid this entire problem. No dishwasher cycles. No running faucet. No endless scrubbing. Instead, you get:

• Water savings → disposable plates mean no water wasted on dishwashing.

• Energy savings → dishwashers won’t drain electricity for heating and drying.

• Time savings → skip the sink, and spend more time in the sukkah with family.

• Stress savings → no piles of dirty dishes waiting after each seudah.

High-quality disposable dinnerware today isn’t flimsy paper. Plastic plates with gold rims, elegant plastic cutlery, and disposable tumblers look like real dishes but offer the convenience of toss-and-go cleanup. On Sukkos, when you’re hosting big meals and trying to maximize family time in the sukkah, this switch makes all the difference.

Even for those who are eco-conscious, many recyclable plastic plates and eco-friendly disposable dinnerware options are available. They let you balance convenience, elegance, and responsibility. And don’t forget: by not running your dishwasher constantly, you’re already offsetting a huge amount of water and energy waste.

So while the mitzvah of Sukkos is to sit in the sukkah, rejoice, and enjoy festive meals, there is no mitzvah to stand for hours by the dishwasher or waste gallons of water. Using plastic plates on Sukkos means you keep the focus on the mitzvos, not the mess — on the lulav and esrog, the seudos, and the joy of family gatherings, not on water bills or tired hands.