Why is there paper, plastic, and fruit pits in your dishwasher?

None of that should be going into your dishwasher and no dishwasher cleaner will not help with that.

I recently had to have a repair call because the dishes weren't getting clean. I don't rinse dishes but do scrape them. I wash all my glass and tin can recycling in the dw but pull the paper labels off first. However they sometimes have some paper residue where the label is glued on that does come off in the DW. Anyway, the holes on the wash arms were mostly plugged and I suspect it was from that gluey paper bits. He just reamed them all out and it works fine. The only other repair I had was from a cherry pit that had gotten into the motor. I don't deliberately put cherry pits in the DW, but it must have been stuck to the bottom of a dish or left in the cherry pitter.

So now I practically count cherry pits to make sure they don't go in and I’m either soaking all the labels and their glue off or just washing the jars by hand (ugh). He also suggested choosing the high temp wash to help dissolve debris. I don't know if that would help you or not.

I think DW cleaner is to clean scale/lime deposits. My water doesn't have those so I've never used them, but I doubt they would work on paper bits.

Perhaps I did not explain well, so i will try again.

The debris in the photo (clog) contained NO PITS, PLASTIC OR GLASS. It appeared to be paper grit.

I think the paper grit comes from the occasional paper labels that come from glass jars.

We recycle glass jars from purchased items. All of the labels do not come free easily, and so some parts of labels remain on some of the jars.

Occasionally a glass will break during the washing cycle and I can remove the pieces. I once found a cherry pit, but again, the DW plastic screen caught it and I could vacuum it away.

Does everyone else hand wash plastic and glass jars that are to be recycled? We want to Recycle and never want to put metal, glass or plastic jars into the recycling bin with food still on them.

So, do other pre-wash glass jars with paper labels? And all the label comes free without your spending lots of time soaking and scraping the jars?

Your trick or tips (assuming you Recycle glass and plastic containers and want them clean of food material)?

I've been hand washing plastic because residues get left on it, and it never gets dry.

In addition to the plastic screen in your dishwasher, there should be a filter that is cylindrical in shape, and you have to remove this (which is not always easy) and clean it thoroughly if you want clean dishes. I have some very small brushes that I use for cleaning my filter, and it can get full of greasy residue if I do not clean it well.

When I have a completely clean filter, the dishes come out cleaner. I use Dawn dish detergent to wash the filter.

I scrub my dishes before they go into the DW, as this is easier than cleaning the DW filter.

Your husband is right, and why would anyone put cherry pits in a dishwasher even accidentally. I also don't get why anyone would spend the time and energy to remove labels and wash recyclable containers before placing them in the recyclable bin? Seems counter productive and an odd thing to do. We give any recyclable container a quick rinse and that's it, and have never seen anyone do such a thing. Jerry Steinfeld could do a half hour comedy stand up just on this tread and have people rolling on the floor,

"Why would anyone put a cherry pit in a dishwasher even accidentally?" The key word is accidentally.

I wash jars like peanut butter in the dw. Or ketchup jars. I drink veggie juice that always has dried on juice around the lid area. You cannot just simply rinse them. No sense wasting water hand washing, when there is always room to squeeze them into a DW load. Our recycle company wants things clean and it avoids smelly bins of containers with food bits sitting for 2 weeks before pick up. Our glass goes in open bins and unwashed containers can draw rodents. Glass is picked up only once a month.

We hand wash all glass, plastic, and cans before recycling. Would not dream of putting those things in the DW. Why do you remove the labels?

Because the labels come off and gum up the machine! The whole point of this thread! I wouldn't dream of wasting water hand washing things that can go in the DW,

I'm sure you'd be appalled that I hand wash a lot of my dishes. I also water my garden as needed and take showers every day.

I understand that cleaning the filter is supposed to be done regularly anyway.

I don't believe it's necessary to remove paper labels before putting jars and bottles in the recycling bin - I do remove plastic labels when possible, since plastic film is a no-no here.

Does your area's recycling require removing paper labels?

To be clear, I don't have a dishwasher, and I only wash out bottles and jars if there's something greasy or smelly on them, otherwise, rinsing is often sufficient - a drop of dish soap and some hot water swished around should be all that's needed.

And some of those bits in the OP photo look like ground meat...?

For those removing labels - run the jar under hot water to warm it up and loosen the label. If any gluey bits remain then use oil (veg, whatever you have that's cheap) to remove the residue.

I hate cleaning out my dishwasher so I always remove big stuff/labels but do not rinse "clean".

Kevin, write to Jerry immediately.

Unlike Olychick, my errant cherry pit did not cause a problem. ——- happens.

All recycled items should be free of food debris. Labels are okay. And leave that plastic cap on the bottles, says our recycling company.

If food is left on or in jars, it cfeates a stinking mess and can attract allsorts of flies, animals (skunks, raccoons, dogs, bear, rodents). Yuck.

It is also disrespectful to the low wage earner humans who must comb through the recyclables that pass in front of them on a conveyor belt. The jars do not need to be sterilized or shiny, but they should be free of food and waste material.

Like Oly, we do try to remove as much of the labels as we can. Maybe I will just hand-wash the food from those jars and bottles with stubburn labels, even though DH says he doesn’t mind dislodging the built up paper dust ever 6 months.

Lars, thanks. I will remind him of the cylindrical filter. The dishes always get very clean, but we get the clog- build up about 2x yearly.

Yes, Kevin, DH doesn’t think that any DW ”cleaner” would work on the papery lint stuff — as Oly or someone opined, it is intended for greasy stuff.

The jars do not need to be sterilized or shiny, but they should be free of food and waste material.

Hand washing accomplishes that easy peasy!

Our recycling bin has drainage holes in the bottom, which is another good reason not to have any food residue in there - not just flies - how about ants and roaches?

I've been known to fish out stuff that wasn't clean enough and rewashing.

In all honesty, tho, recycling seems to be one of the most misunderstood municipal duties around here. People will put garbage out in their recycling bins and then presumably wonder why it's still sitting there after the trucks go by 🙄

I'm all in favor of this responsibility being placed squarely on producers, rather than confused consumers.

Our glass and plastics are rinsed, since that's what the recycling company requires. I have not used the commercial dishwasher cleaner, but I understand it leaves a fragrance--one of my pet peeves. When the DW is empty (a rare occurrence) I put a tall drinking glass with half white vinegar and half water in the bottom, standing up. I run a short cycle That seems to clean up the interior and shines up the stainless steel. Same deal with the washer. I have never used Affresh. I run an empty load on hot with a cup of bleach and set the dial to the self clean spot.

Ours doesn't require labels be removed, I only do it so they can go in the dishwasher. Ours wants all lids from plastic containers removed! I subscribe to a service called Ridwell that recycles hard to recycle items. They pick up plastic bags and packing pillows and wrap, batteries and lightbulbs, electronic's cords and small electronics like phones. They take textiles that might not be wearable or usable but for rags. I can recycle both my plastic lids and metal lids with them. They take styrofoam - all of our styrofoam recyclers locally have quit taking it. They take the plastic clam shell container from fruits and veggies - our local company does not. They contract with reliable recyclers that actually DO responsible stuff with the items they take...like the plastics go to Trex to make decking. They take wine corks that go to flooring manufacturers. The company started in the PNW but is quickly growing. Not sure how far their reach is now, but it's a great service. Saves so much stuff from the landfill.

Ridwell

bpath, you could put it thru the dishwasher! Peanut butter dissolves easily in the hot water and detergent. I still buy peanut butter in glass jars and ketchup, too, tho most everything else comes in plastic. Makes me a bit cranky.

Solution to the problem is to put NOTHING with labels in the dishwasher. Period.

Now, the issue of how much and how to clean recycled containers is another topic.

I appreciate all of your thoughtful responses and am happy that the conversation has migrated a bit towards recycling.

For a long time now (decades) I have been aware of the limited possibilities and capacity of landfills. For years I have considered helping our trash and recycling company and town better communicate their needs to homeowners and all residents.

During the shut down slow down of shipping a few years ago, I did not view the many chock full container ships as a new car delayed or nuts and bolts of a medical device. No I looked at it and thought LANDFILL OVERFLOW.

Yes, carolb, some (too many) people are dumb butt lazy and ignorant about recycling and trash. P*****s me off.

Our contracted municipal recycling company says that labels are fine. And they warn that a greasy pizza box is murder to the value of clean recyclable paper. Not all paper and paperboard is recyclable. A high value recyclable is clean cardboard like the sort a new television might be wrapped in.

A recent TV news item showed video of some young men dumping a few trash bins into the bay. Stupid kids. Educate them, community service to help educate others.

Believe it or not, back in the late 1950s that was what a LOT of summer visitors did with their trash. Row out into the bay and sink it! My father was a part time photographer and news columnist then and go together with an illustrator to develop materials for an educational trash-dumping awareness campaign.

Things have changed.

DH says that he’s not seen any cylindrical filter on our dishwasher. It is a KA that I found listed for free 14 years ago on CL. The guy offering it said that the grinder made a nouse. DH spent $45 on a new pre-drain grinder.Never installed it, not needed. The guy giving it away just wanted a different color DW ;)

We are located in an environmentally sensitive area and are on septic and well water.

I tend to be a frugal Yankee sort and we both tend to be resourceful.

carolb and Oly, yes, we need to put more of the onus on manufacturers. Our recycler does not take polystyrene foam and yes most grlcery stores rely on it heavily for meat and some produce or other items.

Lobster fishermen create or use polystyrene for their bouys. It fractures and breaks down over time. ack in the 1960s one of my relatives was one of the first to come up with this. He’d buy large block of polystyrene and saw them into cubes or rectangles fir lobster buoys. Lightweight and easy to spray paint with his colors and ”brand” (melt) his number into them. so much lighter than a traditional bouy (3 to 5 pounds), and since hundreds were used, put in and takem

n out of service each year, that was one heck of a labor saving move. After a few years, the poly bouys would fracture or disintegrate and they were easily replaced. Later lobster bouy shaped bouys were commercially manufactred and used the same way. I don’t know if anyone used wooden bouys any longer. Expensive and heavy.

I have a collection of about 20 such wooden bouys —some antique.

Most of these bouys are polystyrene— styrofoam.

OK here goes. IN 60 years of dishwashers, I don't rinse, I scrape and that's about it at best. Yes are there little bits of food debris, yes and that'ss perfectly all right. If everything is rinsed off, t hat leaves nothing for hte detergent to work on and it attacks the dishwasher, the mechanism, and the racks. For the occassional item that has a label on it that I want to save or resue, it g4ets soaked in the sink with dish detergent and the label soaked off. I also scrub off any adhesive residue on the jar because any of that will clog up the mechanism--it's glue people. And the word "BobLoads" referred to for laundry and dish loads is because of me.

And if you're squiritng liquid dish detergent on items and rinsisng them off that way before putting them in the machine, if going that far, you might as felel finish washing the item by hand and putting them in a dish draibner to dry and put them back in the cabinet. A horrible waste.

Like Boba I scrape any big pieces of stuff and that's it. There is no rinsing. I never understood the whole rinsing thing. My SIL and brother rinse dishes completely clean and then put them in the dishwasher. If I am going to do that I may as well just hand wash the stuff.

As far as removable filters in dishwashers... I don't think they all have them. My Bosch has one and I clean it periodically.

My dishwasher started smelling like something was burning during the drying cycle. A few days later I saw a cherry pit wedged under the drying coil. Recyclables might get rinsed and swished here, not always. No one sorts recycles at our landfill. Its done by machines.

I understand, Vinmarks. I wash some things by hand (pots, pans, cast iron, cooking knives), but rinse a bit because we don’t always have enough dishes for a full load. We have plenty of water and a good SDS that we maintain. Water goes around in a relatively local “hydrological cycle.” (I’m being a bit flip on that last sentence — we have lots of water here, and gravel, sandy soil and trees. Our house could use less water and wetland around it, and more sunlight (so that it would dry out, stay dry and we could paint the trim.)

DH says no other filter in sight, but I may look up the specs on the DW when I can. One thing I like about it is that it heats the water. our electric water heater in the unheated cellar is only set to 140 deg F and by the time it arrives in the kitchen is probably only 125 to 130 deg F.

I never put anything with a paper label on it in my dishwasher. If I want to remove the label from a can or jar I soak in a couple of inches of water in my sink, turning once or twice, enough to loosen the paper and glue and I put the label in the trash, the mostly clean container in recycling.

I do occasionally use an Affresh dishwasher cleaning tab. It would do nothing for paper, bits of shell or fruit pits.

I scrape never rinse dishes going into my dishwasher. My model (nearing 20 yrs old) that I replaced about a year ago had its own food grinder. My new model does not and has a filter that is supposed to require occasional attention. Never ever rinsing, in about years time I have found a tiny piece of something that looks like part of a piece of cooked macaroni in it a total of three times now. Nothing else. And I don't even cook with macaroni very often so I'm not sure what that tiny soft piece of debris even is. Filter is clean and odor free otherwise.

But again, I'd never intentionally put paper in my dishwasher. If I've taken a dish someplace and taped my name to the bottom, I am oh so careful to check and remove it before washing my serving dish in my dishwasher.

DH will somewhat frequently cook seafood for his friends in the garage or driveway - he has his own cookware, electric skillets, crab cooker etc. I will often make a pot of baked beans for a side dish as my contribution. One of his friends insists on all but washing plates, helping to clean up. He insists the baked bean residue will not come off my porcelain plates. He's so wrong. I've been in his kitchen and its all high end appliances, more expensive than my own with his sub-zero, miele, etc. I have no idea where he became convinced baked bean residue is a problem. I have to almost fight him to not have him hand washing dishes and splashing water all over my sink area 😊 Every time.

Thanks, morz8. I am going to avoid putting anything with paper, labels or glue in our DW and will ask DH not to either.

Baked beans! So good! It all washes off easily, unless your friend use a thermonuclear oven. Even then. (But maybe we don’t know some of his ingredients — like those used in rocket shields.)

I remember when baked beans and blueberry pie were always used in commercials to show the cleaning ability of kitchen products. I always thought that was deceptive, since they're generally not too hard to wash off 😏

Petalique, we may never know some of his ingredients. He's quite an accomplished cook and drops dinner off here once a month or so, usually unannounced. He's one of the very few people I know who will not consider sharing recipes. He says they are his grandmothers and stay in the family. Grandma must have been quite a cook. (He grew up next door to DH and DH remembers his grandmother. He agrees she could really cook when both DH's mother and father knew their way around a kitchen too).

I looked at a KA DW manual, and it appears that those do not have the fine mesh cylindrical filters that both of mine have, one of which is Bosch and the other is Whirlpool. I wish mine did not have these filters, as I think the debris that they catch should have gone through the garbage disposal system. The fine mesh filters are a huge pain to clean, and they get dirty very easily.

I read all manuals that I get, and I have also written manuals for others.

We also read and save manuals. However, several of or appliances are new-oe good condition used (CL) and sometimes do not come with any documentation. Sometimes we can fine the information online.

That KA dishwasher has been great — quiet and works very well. It is not a big deal to occasionally have to remove the plastic screen and free any paper lint. I will avoid that now that I am not going to put any jars with pieces of stubborn labels.

As for regular maintenance, What is there to do? No wheel bearing to oil or replace, no battery to charge.