You or Your Dishwasher, Who Uses Less Water?

It's one of the enduring conundrums of modern life: Finding the greenest way to clean dishes. Should we throw them in the dishwasher or do them by hand? 

Water flows from the average faucet at about 2 gallons of water per minute.

An energy efficient dishwasher uses just more 4 gallons of water per cycle.

So, if you're only running a fully loaded dishwasher, you are probably saving water (though it does use electricity).

But if you use water very sparingly — using a double sink, for example — you may well be saving water.

But in the world of water conservation — there's an even bigger scourge. Alan Rothschild, president of New York City Water Experts, helps building owners lower their water use. He said one of the biggest wastes of water is a running toilet; at one gallon per minute -- if it goes unrepaired, could cost $5,000 a year.

New York City's Department of Environmental Protection puts the number even higher, reporting that a large toilet could be leaking 4,000 gallons a day, at a cost of $44 each day.