We have a very bad habit of allowing dirty dishes to pile up in my house at a very alarming rate. We eat, rinse and set down dishes on the counter next to the sink - pretty much so we can accumulate enough items to fill the washer. We could very well rinse and stick them in the washer right then but we are mostly too lazy for that bit. Neither one of us will get to this point unless we either ran out of spoons or we can’t stand the strange odor eminating from the pile any longer. Yes - something had to be done!

So a couple of weeks ago we started a different routine. After each meal rinse dishes and while still wet sprinkle some baking soda on the dishes and pile them.
The noticeable difference when we finally ran out of spoons was there was no foul smell!

So i went out and bought a big salt shaker filled it with baking soda and set it next to the kitchen sink for the sole purpose of sprinkling and deodarizing the dishes. I also notice that i don’t use as much dish washing detergent if i sprinkle baking soda on them prior to putting them in the dish washer. With less dish washing detergent used then less water is needed to wash dishes!

Occassionally we will forget the sprinkling part and not realize it until all the dishes are loaded in the dish washers. Not to worry, sprinkle them while in the washer, it doesn’t do quite as good a job but it will be better than nothing and will keep your washer clean too.

I use baking soda to clean the kitchen sink as well - it leaves it clean and shiny as stainless steel was intended to be.