Can you wash it in the dishwasher?

Dishwashers take the elbow grease out of removing greasy food stains from your dining ware, and power away baked-on bolognese and lingering lasagne from pots, pans and baking dishes.

But unlike your kitchen sink where you can wash everything but, well, the kitchen sink, some things don't fare well in your dishwasher's inhospitable insides.

Here's a list of exactly what you can and can't safely wash in your dishwasher so you never have to wonder again whether your great-aunt's silver-plated teaspoons will survive the cycle. (Hot tip: you're better off handwashing them if you want them to stay silver.)

Here's what CHOICE's kitchen experts say you can and can't wash in the dishwasher.

Dishwashers are great for pretty much all everyday plates, cups and cutlery, so given the time and water savings of a dishwasher, racking your plates in one instead of stacking them by the sink is a no-brainer. And because your dirty plates are out of sight you can wait a couple of days till the machine's full before you run it, for even more savings.

Modern dishwashers do a surprisingly good job cleaning even heavily soiled stainless steel pots and pans and ceramic baking dishes. Combined with a good-quality detergent, your dishwasher may clean away burned-on cheese and food particles that would pose a challenge when washing by hand.

Many dishwashers also have foldable or removable tines to make it easier to fit bulky pots, and some even have an intensive zone, designed specifically to give cookware an extra-thorough going over. Though you should still handwash non-stick, copper and fine aluminium cookware because they can be damaged by the dishwasher.

Sponges and scourers can get caked up with food particles pretty quickly, which means they're a hive for bacteria. Washing this handheld bacteria nest in the kitchen sink won't cut it from a hygiene perspective (that's where the bacteria came from in the first place), but rather than relegating your manky kitchen sponge to landfill and buying a new one, you can give it a new lease on life by running it through your dishwasher to leave it sanitised, refreshed and probably smelling better, ready to scrub for another day.

It's pretty inhospitable inside your dishwasher, even on a gentle cycle. That's why they clean so well, but it means not everything is dishwasher-safe. So what are you better off washing by hand?

Fragile glassware can scratch or break easily. So if you value your stemware then handwash it instead. (And just to be on the safe side and avoid breakages, maybe wash them the next morning if you've had a few glasses too many.)

Even durable drinking glasses can fall foul of the dishwasher and develop a white haze over time. Alkaline detergents slowly dissolve the glass itself (silicate filming and etching), leave tiny crystal formations (devitrification), and abrasives in the detergent can physically scour your glass (this gets worse with cheaper powder detergents).

If you're washing in hard water then you may even find cloudy calcium deposits on your glass, though unlike other causes of hazing, this can be removed.

CHOICE tip: If your wine glasses have lingering red wine stains, use denture cleaner to remove them.

Leave your nan's lead crystal glassware in the display cabinet next to the teaspoons, because your dishwasher's high temperature and alkaline detergent can convert the lead into a soluble form which can be ingested next time you're enjoying a crème de menthe.

Sterling silver, pewter, aluminium, brass and copper will discolour in your dishwasher, and light aluminium items can also mark other items as they bump around during the wash cycle. Pewter can even warp due to its low melting point.

Nonstick coatings will deteriorate rapidly in your dishwasher – follow the manufacturer's cleaning instructions to extend their life. (And ask yourself – if they're really non-stick, why is there anything to wash off in the first place?)

Glossy, gold-coloured or hand-painted items will dull and fade in your dishwasher, and fragile items can be damaged by bouncing against other items or even by thermal stress.

The glue that binds hollow-handle knives, wooden cutting boards or other laminates will melt or soften in a dishwasher, and high temperatures and moisture damage wood, so handwash wooden items instead.

A hot dishwasher can warp or damage some plastics, and squeezing plastic items into small spaces may also cause warping – so while you can put them in the dishwasher, they should go on the top shelf.

Plastics also have a low thermal mass, so they don't dry especially well in your dishwasher.

Your dishwasher won't damage the cast iron itself, but it will strip off the layers of seasoning that protect your pan from rust and make it virtually nonstick.

But your skillet shouldn't go near the sink either – just wipe it out with paper towel to clean it, and remove stubborn cooking remnants with salt and elbow grease.

Dishwasher-wise, your good knives don't make the cut – their high carbon steel corrodes rapidly in your dishwasher's harsh, alkaline environment, and bouncing around with other items will dull carefully honed cutting edges. Plus, emptying the dishwasher is a far riskier proposition with a 6" chef's knife somewhere inside.

Items contaminated with wax, cigarette ash, poisons, mineral oils, wet paints and oiled tools should never go in your dishwasher, as contaminants can be left behind and redeposited on future loads.

Likewise, objects contaminated by solvents or flammable liquids could explode in a dishwasher, so (carefully) handwash them instead.

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