Another dish-washing question

[vilakins]

I should have added this to the last post, sorry, but I thought of it a bit late.

This is for people from the UK. Why do you wash dishes in a plastic bowl in the sink rather than directly in the sink? Is it to save water, to keep the sink clean, to be able to toss debris over the side, to protect dishes from hard metal, or for some other reason?

Just so people know my dish-washing habits, I rinse dishes to get loose food off and put them in the dishwasher. I wash delicate glassware (only used for dinner parties or special occasions) in the sink with a microfibre cloth, and pots and pans with a brush which goes through the dishwasher when it needs it. I dry any hand-washed dishes with a tea towel, and no, I don't know why it's called that. "Dish towel", as cited by an American, makes more sense.

The only reason I'm asking about dish washing is because of seeing so many knitted dish cloths on a knitting site and community. It's not normally a subject that exerts any fascination. :-P

Comments

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Back when I was a child this house only had cold water on demand, any hot water had to be boiled on the stove or in the very early days of this house on the fire hobs. This was a very common thing up to the 40s and early 50s. The sink was what we now call a butler's sink(http://www.notempire.com/images/uploads/Picture_6-57.jpg)
which took more water to fill than our manual washing machine so a bowl, enamel way back then later plastic, was placed in the sink to save having to boil the very large kettle more than once. It was a habit that my mother kept to the end of her life and which I had until about 5 years ago when asked myself why I was doing it found no good reason and stopped doing it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

That looks like the sort of sink we had in old laundries! I still have a fairly large steel one there.

So you just use the sink for dishes now?

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Yes and I only wash up once a day too unless I have a guest or guests as I only use as much in a day as a couple would at one meal and it's a waste of water and washing up liquid to fill the sink for one cereal bowl and a coffee cup at breakfast and one plate the bread knife and the butter knife at lunch.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

We only run the dishwasher once a day too, unless I've used a lot of dishes and pots cooking.