washing up

Tundra57

How do you Boondockers out there wash up dishes and pans etc to conserve water?

Verna

Here’s the secret. A pump handheld sprayer. Put fresh clear water in the pump sprayer, pump it up and use the pump to rinse your dishes. 

I’m adding a second pump sprayer to my arsenal, and I will add a few drops of Dawn , fill with water, pump it up, and spray it on the dishes, wash them and then spray with the clear water for rinsing. 

Think of the few seconds of water you waste and let go down the drain as you wait for the hot water to reach the kitchen sink—no more with the two spray bottle method. 

Is it sanitary? Well, the dishes at home aren’t greasy and yucky in my tests, and I know @Homebodyatheart has been using this method, but with more Dawn than I am describing. 

If ask “Why Dawn?”  I am no longer buying any special cleansers at home. If I spill red wine on a t-shirt, take it to the sink, spray it with the Dawn sprayer mixture (or full strength if it’s a lot of wasted wine😉), use a nail brush and brush it to get the stain out. Then rinse with clear water and the stain is gone. It works to remove blood, grease and other stains, too. So, if Dawn is good enough to clean up oily wildlife after a spill and remove blood and wine ftom clothes, it’s good enough to stay in my house/camper. 

(I have no financial interests in Dawn, just a really satisfied customer!)

jkjenn

I concur with Verna. The other thing you can do is get one of those sponges where the handle holds soap and and combine sopa and water. I, too, use Dawn. It just works.

The key is to do a good job scraping. Before I wash, I thoroughly with a plastic food scraper.

bergger

First start by eating what's on you're plate, lick it clean if it's a really good meal!  If needed pre-wipe the dishes and just use a little hot water to conserve it.  No need to have to buy and store another gadget to wash dishes in my opinion.  

pthomas745

I don't like to cook anything that will require a greasy clean up.  Simple is better.  Verna's spray bottle trick was the first trick I learned from this group, and it just works perfectly.  A running faucet is a waste of fresh water, and a waste of gray water capacity. 

The only more efficient way of washing dishes is paper plates you dispose in your campfire!

DanManz

We agree with @bergger.  Our dishes get wiped down after meals.  We carry two nesting plastic dish pans under the sink in our 400.  One gets about an inch of water with the soap.  The other is for rinse.  We typically set everything out on a dish towel on the table to air dry.  The soap is all biodegradable so we don't feel bad about tossing it out on the ground if there isn't a real place to dispose of it.  After we dump the wash pan, we rinse it with the rinse water.  Really simple.  Works great.

Denny16

On the boat, we had two wash basins, one with soapy hot water, and a second with clear rinse water, with a bit of bleach in it.  You scrapped your plate, dunked it into the hot soapy washed it off, drained the excess water off, then dunked it into the rinse water.  A crew of 13-14 did this for each meal. No running water used. 
cheers

PNWtabber

I've always done similar to @Denny16 when tent camping.  Assumed I would continue to do so with the trailer, but willing to learn other methods.

VictoriaP

I use @Verna’s soap sprayer method after scraping and swiping with a paper towel, then a bit of boiling water from the kettle poured over as a rinse into a dishpan.

Verna

As far as the Girl Scout method of adding bleach to the rinse water....I’m allergic to bleach/chorine and do not even have any in the camper.  I can’t even swim in chlorinated water—that is a great loss....  I’ll stick to my method.

Marceline

I used Dawn Platinum Powerwash Dish Spray this past season. It seems to work pretty well. If I'm in a place where it's OK to dump the gray water I use Dr. Bronner's.

4ncar

Two nesting tubs, one with a little bit of soapy water, and the other to hold the clean dishes. I use the outside shower to rinse, over the tub of soapy water. Very sparingly. The first few rinses are cold, until the the lines clear and hot for remaining rinses. A full dinner clean up for two, including pots & pans uses less then a quart of water. Biodegradable soap, and dish water goes into a cat hole. FWIW...I cook just like I cook at home. I like food!

ontheroad

@Marceline...I picked some of that up just to try...like it on stubborn residue from cooking..thinking with that and @Verna's pump it would work...of course regular "dawn" would still be packed since it truly works!

Tundra57

Great ideas. Ill put those into use on my drive back up from Florida to Connecticut.

aphillips

I love this forum and everyone's helpful suggestions. I recently tried the Seventh Generation foaming dish spray and it worked great! It is basically @Verna's suggestion about the Dawn, but already premixed and biodegradable. After wiping off our dirty dishes into the trash can, a few sprays was all that was needed to wash all of our dinner plates. The only water needed is for getting your sponge wet and for rinsing. I do that in a separate tub filled with as little water as possible, so it really saves on gray water.