BBQ Etiquette & Dishwashing

Today we barbecued with the neighbors, and it brought up a few of the green issues that always come up with picnics/BBQs:

1. Should we bring our own plates/silverware or use the disposables provided by the host? (If I know ahead of time, I always bring my own stuff). I try not to make a big deal about it, but sometimes I really stick out.

2. What should we eat? Normally, we only eat "happy" free-range meat, but that is not usually the fare at a BBQ. We bring our own, but everyone shares. On this issue, I would feel sort of weird refusing to eat other people's food (but having them share mine...I'm not going to refuse to share it). What do you do? Maybe the health benefits of friendship outweigh the badness of the antibiotics etc. in the meat? I like to think so.

3. Recycling? Few people recycle at BBQs here. This evening we collected the recycling and brought it home. Some of it was already in the trash, but the trash was mostly styrofoam plates (pretty clean ones), so it wasn't really gross. C said "I'm really weird about this... do you mind if I recycle the bottles?" It led to a little chat about recycling, but no one seemed to think we were freaks or anything.

Any comments or suggestions? I'm curious to see what other people do. One thing that did cut down on the waste at this BBQ was the fact that it was almost entirely finger food. Now that's pretty smart. Not something you could do every time, but really handy, especially with little kids.

Dishwashing
Of course, once you bring those plates home from the BBQ, you have to wash them. BLAH! It's my most hated chore. We don't have a dishwasher, so we wash them all by hand. But if we had a choice, is that the best choice?

Dishwasher vs. Hand-washing
Treehugger posted about this a while ago and found that using the dishwasher uses less energy and less water (unless, perhaps, your dishwasher is very old). For this to be the case, you should not pre-rinse the dishes and should not use the dry cycle.

Hand-washing:
So what do you do if you don't have a dishwasher (or yours is not efficient)? How much water is used during hand-washing really depends on how you do it. There are 3 methods (that I can think of):
A. Run the warm water. Wash each dish with a sponge, rinse it off.
B. Fill a sink with warm soapy water. Wash the dishes. Rinse in another sink (or refill the sink).
C. Wet the dishes. Wash them with soapy sponge. Rinse in sink.

Method C is what my husband does. He is amazing at conserving water. I honestly do not see how a dishwasher could use less water. Method A is the method I use. It is a terrible wasteful method, but pretty fast, and I do not have to put my hands in funky water. Next time I wash the dishes, I will try method B -- the full sink method -- with a pair of gloves.

Another important factor is the type of dish soap used. Most dish soap is phosphate free, whereas most dishwasher detergent is not (point for hand-washing!). You can also avoid plastic packaging by using a bar of soap to wash the dishes. Just dab the soap with a wet sponge and voila! -- soapy sponge. I thought this was totally revolutionary, but then my husband told me that's what he grew up doing. (He's from Central America and thus is wise in water conservation and not wasting stuff.)

Any suggestions on dishwashing? What do you do?