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Taking a piece of metal or a plate that has any oily or other non-water-soluble food on it, rinsing it, and chlorinating it results in a mess that might indeed be non-infectious but is otherwise disgusting. Also, leaving a piece of stainless steel covered in chloride (which that bleach will turn into) is one of the worst things you could credibly do to it in a kitchen context. (And, while the relevant regulators don’t seem to care about disinfection byproducts in a kitchen, all those residual organics that didn’t get removed plus hypochlorous acid seem like they would thoroughly fail most drinking water standards.)

Also, I don’t know what all the food safety and dishwasher vendors are telling their customers, but that nice residual chlorine has a tasty and odor that is not appetizing at all. But you can also legally disinfect your dishes and such with sufficiently hot water, and you can buy a commercial dishwasher that does that instead of using chlorine.

In a home context, what’s wrong with dish soap and a sponge or brush? In a commercial kitchen that really wants to be compliant could use dish soap followed by a (very) hot rinse. The average household instant hot water tap is plenty hot for this, too, although demonstrably hitting those HACCP targets might be tricky.





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