washing dishes in garbage
John, it's good to see there is someone else who despises dishwashers that pass every drop of wash and rinse water through garbage in the bottom of the tub. (See my recent post in Discuss-O-Mat Deluxe under GE Pure Clean)
A dishwasher that cannot dispose of food wastes is not a dishwasher but only a machine that splashes water on dishes.
In the U.S. market it seems as if the Whirlpool products are the best at food waste disposing as they have the largest openings in the sump cover.
The GE Tower Wash models do well, also. (but not the Tall Tubs.)
The newer Tower washes have small sump openings. If you take a pair of cutters and enlarge the openings on the sump cover to the size that GE used to use, it will take some good sized wastes and dispose of it as well as the Whirlpools. I have not encountered and clogging problems after having done this.
I had a couple of Frigidaires and removed the "glass trap" covering in the sump and they then did fairly well disposing of most wastes.
I would have to say that the older Whirlpools, with their killer motor, were tops at getting rid of anything I could dish out to them. Mine disposed of green beans, popcorn, pea pod remains, corn, etc. The Reverse Rack Maytags with hard food waste disposer, I have had, did well also. However, an occasional large piece of meat, etc. wouldn't make it past the slightly smaller than Whilpool sump openings.
On many of the newer dishwashers, if you don't like washing and rinsing your dishes in garbage, you have to pre-rinse and this greatly adds to the energy used to wash the dishes.
Even if you don't, you have to account for the time and energy used to pull the filters out, rinse them off and dispose of the garbage on them.
I think the U.S. Government Energy Ratings should give higher marks to dishwashers that dispose of food wastes and do not require the extra water usage that consumers need to rinse off the dishes.
