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

[pet-lunatic.livejournal.com]

As above, but wanted to add that I must be weird in that I*don't* use a bowl, just the sink itself. My in-laws don't use a bowl either - they have a sort of removable inlay in the sink.

We don't have a dishwasher. I've never used one in my life! I use a wash-up for washing most stuff, a scourer for the pans, and a tea towel to dry stuff :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

The inlay is something I haven't heard of before. Is it steel?

I washed that way too till I bought a very small Bosch dish washer when I had an ill flatmate who easily caught bugs and wanted to make sure things were well washed. I couldn't go back after that.