Helped pay my way through High School (about 1960).

We'd rinse the stuff off, put the dishes in a rack, and send them through the dishwasher.

I hated smartasses who would grind pennies or other hard objects into the residue on the plate, because you couldn't just rinse it off into the garbage disposal.

Nowadays I suppose you'd wear rubber gloves, but back then we just used the hands we had.