Dishmaker - Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages and Disadvantages

The Dishmaker’s main advantage is it uses less energy for forming as it can make 150 acrylic dishes with less energy than it takes to make one normal ceramic dish (Wired News 2005). However, as the dishes are not completely cleaned by reforming, the energy used to create the dishmaker, and the unknown durability of the acrylic, it is unclear how much energy is saved overall.

There are many drawbacks that are still being worked out with the first version of the Dishmaker. All the dishes are the same design right now, so there is no variety as you see with dishes today. Also, cups don’t take up the same material as a bowl, so there is a lot of left over material that ends up at the lip of the cup, making it awkward-looking and difficult to drink out of (Wired News 2005). The problem of cleaning the dishes is not fully worked out. The heating process when the dishes are put back into disc shape naturally takes care of much of the food that would be left on them. However, grease and other foods not affected by the heat would not be removed. In fact, the grease can settle into the material when it is heated (Wired News 2005). A dishwashing mechanism could be worked into the machine, but the goal is to keep it water-free to keep it as efficient as possible (Wired News 2005).