Drying racks are for lonely people. This is my case against using a drying rack at all.
article: Drying Racks are for Lonely People · changes
diff --git a/src/drying-racks.md b/src/drying-racks.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b4782a --- /dev/null +++ b/src/drying-racks.md @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +--- +title: Drying Racks are for Lonely People +--- + +Drying racks are for lonely people – or rather for people who live alone. + +Drying racks are for procrastination and self-indulgence. +When you put a dish in a drying rack you are asking “who might finish my work for me later?” + +If you live alone then you can be sure that answer is “I will finish this work later” +and that's all perfectly fine. +<!-- It is up to you --> + +If you live with others then using the drying rack is pushing a small easy task onto your friends, partner, children, or parents. +(Or perhaps wishfully an industrious poltergeist) + +Use the dishwasher. +Run it frequently.[^dishwasher] +Towel off that mug and put it back, +shake the colander dry +and hang the pasta pot right back on the rack. + +Don’t defer a twenty-second task for hours or days. + +Drying racks are for lonely people wanting a buddy to appear. + +[^dishwasher]: In San Francisco it costs me approximately $18 per month when run daily. +That's $0.60 per load, of which $0.12 is the cost of water and the remainder is energy. +An EnergyStar dishwasher uses about 3.2 gallons of water and 1.12 kWh of energy.[^water-usage] +The average household in the United States would pay $0.18 for electricity and $0.06 for water.[^water][^electricity] +My dishwasher serves seven people and compared to energy usage for heating, transportation, lighting, and other uses the cost is marginal.[^cost-to-society] + +[^water-usage]: [Purchasing Energy-efficient Residential Dishwashers](https://www.energy.gov/cmei/femp/purchasing-energy-efficient-residential-dishwashers), U.S. Department of Energy + +[^water]: [Data and Information Used by WaterSense](https://www.epa.gov/watersense/data-and-information-used-watersense) + +[^electricity]: [Electricity Rates by State](https://poweroutage.us/electricity-rates) + +[^cost-to-society]: I’m allowing price to stand in for “cost to society” even though there are externalities which drive these apart, +such as water being drawn from aquifers without complete accounting for the importance of that resource and the difficulty of restoring it. +One improvement would be to substitute the cost of clean energy and the cost of clean energy-powered desalniated water.