Washing dishes with seawater or freshwater?
When backpacking in a coastal region, you sometimes have access to both fresh water (e.g. a stream) and salt water (sea, bay, etc.).
If you do not treat the water used for washing dishes, what are the pros and cons of using saltwater vs. freshwater? Is there one source that is less prone to contamination?
The choice is easy if the shoreline is polluted or the stream is next to a privy (established or... improvised). However, when there are no obvious differences in water quality, which one would be more recommended and why?
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Leaving aside the questions of water purity, then the answer would be fresh water, no question.
Salt water does not lather up many soaps very well, although detergents are a different story. Salt water also does not rinse cleanly, so even those long-distance sailors that use salt and Joy detergent (no corporate affiliation, but lots of online reading) use (clean) fresh to rinse.
So, fresh it is. (But purify somehow, by boiling if by nothing else)
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Seawater typically has more organisms growing in it than a flowing stream of clear water. However, it's a good idea to use something (boiling, wet ones, clorox wipes, etc.) that kills giardia, microspiridia, and other protozoa or bacteria than can give you the diarrhea.
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You should never plan to not purify. Levels of contamination will depend on the location. A stream running by a pasture 50 miles upstream will possibly contain more contaminants than ocean, even if the ocean (on average) is worse.
If you have a way to purify, then purify! If you can't purify, consider heating your dishes over a flame afterwards until they are dry and too hot to touch. That should kill most of organisms that would hurt you.
If you have absolutely no way to purify and no way to sterilize, then it's a crap shoot no matter what.
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