Do you want to use your dishwasher in a more nature-friendly way and save money doing it? Make these sustainable dishwasher tablets from few basic ingredients.
It’s not always cheaper to make your cosmetics and detergents at home, it’s mostly done for the quality and health benefits. However, the DIY dishwasher pods are a different story – they are ecological and cheap. You need just three ingredients – baking soda, citric acid and a little water.
Let’s talk about the price for a bit. Of course it depends on what brand of pods from the store you compare the homemade tabs to. You can buy cheaper or more expensive boxes. It also depends on where you get your ingredients from and on the amount that you buy as larger amounts tend to be significantly cheaper. My dishwasher tablets come to about 0,034 Euro/0,043 USD a tablet and the cheapest I can buy at a store are 0,1 Euro/0,13 USD a tablet.
You can use both citric acid and baking soda for cleaning your household so if you have some space for storage, buying larger amounts is a way to save some decent money. Check out for example this Eco-friendly and Cheap Kitchen Cleaning.
Supplies
- 2 parts of baking soda
- 1 part of citric acid
- a little water
- spray bottle
- ice mold
- jar with closing
DIY Dishwasher Tablets Tutorial
If your citric acid comes in crystals, I recommend you to grind it or blend it in a blender. It’s an optional step that will make the result better. Mix the acid and the soda in a bowl.
Put some water in the spray bottle and spray ONCE in the bowl. Mix properly with a fork or a spoon. Let’s stop here for a moment: I recommend you to use a spray bottle because anything larger than the aerosol drops is too large and there’s a chance larger drops of water will start the chemical reaction and render your tabs useless. If you don’t have a spray bottle, don’t add water from a spoon! You can dip your hand in water and let a few drops fall into the mixture. It’s not ideal but it will work if you’re careful.
Add the water always one spray at a time, then mix properly and try the consistency – take some mixture in your hand and press. Open your hand and if the mixture keeps the shape and doesn’t crumble, it’s ready. You need to combine all the ingredients well after each spray because it might seem at first as if it’s too dry and you need to add more water but when you combine everything properly, you might find out that it’s actually enough. Don’t be surprised if you need to spray only twice or three times for a 300 grams mixture.
Press the mixture into the ice mold. If you don’t have a good mold, you can make small shapes in your hand. There are two important things to do – 1. press the mixture into the mold, don’t just put it there, you need to press it down, add more, press again; 2. check the size of the tablets compartment of your dishwasher and make sure the tablets that come out of the mold will fit there.
Let the dishwasher tabs dry in the mold for 12 hours, then take them out carefully and let them dry for another 12 hours. Needles to say, they need to rest in a dry environment.
Keep them in a closed jar where they cannot get wet. And since you’re about to use environmentally friendly dishwasher pods, how about using a sustainable rinse also? Use vinegar!
