Plastic washing up bowl in stainless steel kitchen sink - why?

As well as a dishwasher I have one and a half sinks. I have a washing up bowl and a dishcloth. Very useful for the things that are too delicate or too big for the dishwasher. I can’t say I make a huge effort to bleach regularly, and we have never had tummy bugs etc.

One of the many uses of a washing-up bowl is to catch all the cold water that comes through the taps before the hot water. It can then be used on plants , or even to flush the toilet. Good for both the purse and the environment!
The current bowl is about 10 years old, and hopefully has a lot of years left in it yet, so no, I'm not concerned about this particular use of plastic.
Plus my extremely snobbish SiL looks down her nose at anyone who uses one, saying it is very common (she once said this while staying with us, knowing full well that we use one). That's like a red rag to a bull where I am concerned ?

I never bleach anything. Washing up liquid must kill bugs.

I could never understand the idea of plastic bowls when living in the UK. Where I live no one I know uses bowls. We tend to have double or one and a half sinks and many people have dishwashers. I don’t have a dishwasher and use both my sinks as I like to rinse my dishes after I wash them.

This must be a British habit. I have never seen anyone using a plastic basin inside their sink here in Canada.

I have a plastic basin that I use for foot soaking!

I use the sink to rinse cloths that I have washed skirting boards with window sills tiles etc. Using the sink for dishes that I eat from? yuk!

Can I ask whether all those who do not use a washing up bowl, if you use a mat in the bottom of your sinks, to protect delicate china/ glass?

Good grief. What a first world dilemma

Oh is that what those mats are for?! I thought they were to protect the sink. If I thought about them at all.

I used to scoff at the plastic bowl idea, preferring to use the sink 'as is'. But my stainless steel sink got scratched by all the cutlery rattling around in it, so when I got a new kitchen, I also got a washing up bowl and now my sink has stayed super shiny

But the other benefits are that if, during the washing up, I pick up a cup or bowl that still has liquid in it,I can tip this down the outside of the bowl and therefore it doesn't dirty up the washing water. Also, if I am making a pot of tea to enjoy after the washing up, I can run the mixer tap to cold water outside of the bowl, to fill up the kettle, without cooling down the washing up water.

The bowl is easily cleaned and disinfected after using, with a capful of Zoflora (other disinfectants are available!).

The water stays hotter in the plastic bowl than the sink

As a child, our home had a big, stone sink, massive thing which would have taken many gallons to fill and in which, as babies, we were bathed. Mum also did a certain amount of laundry in it as well.

So for hygiene sake. Mum used a small enamel washing up bowl for our dishes, then graduated to plastic and when I grew up, I followed suit.

It saves water if you are paying by the gallon; it keeps the water hotter longer; you can discard and renew the soapy water if the pots are messy.
It's far better for delicate ceramics and glasses or even clear Pyrex dishes which look very shabby after regular pounding in the dishwasher.

It is ecological better - and yes, I know plastic is supposed to be the enemy these days but I am informed that the chemicals we use in a dishwasher, plus the energy needed to heat the water hot enough for such a device to be effective, several times a week, and the huge amount of water wasted used by these mechanical devices, far outweighs the footprint of a small plastic bowl.

Anyway, I'm alerted to washing my plastic bowl more often than I do!

'- where do you put the slops if you don't have one? '

ah the joys of a Swiss sink - they all have a wide tall removal stopper in the corner, about 1 inch wide - so if you fill the sink with hot water, slops can be poured into that. No idea how one would call it in English.

Have had my washing up bowl at least five years..and same as Gonegirl..the old ones are in the shed and get lots of use when I'm gardening..

Actually BradfordLass72 it's my understanding that dishwashers (of which I sadly don't have one!) are the only appliance that is better for the environment than the manual alternative (provided, obviously, that you fill them up before running)

Not if you rinse everything to within an inch of its life before putting it in the dishwasher, humptydumpty, like my late dad used to do ?

where do you put the slops if you don't have one?

What are these slops of which we speak? If they're the scrapings off the plates, ours go straight into the food recycling bin, and are collected by our council every week. Is this unusual?

Drinks, soup etc.

Ah, right. We don't waste any, to be honest. It's different when the grandsons visit, though we have got them on the training programme. Waste not, want not, as my DM would have said.

Do you really never find a bit of cold tea or coffee left in a cup when loading the dishwasher? ☺

No, can’t say I do. We make a drink, sit down and drink it. I can’t see why we’d abandon it mid-cup.

This is horrendous!

You are all ignoring the most important point raised on this thread; the role of stainless steel in our domestic happiness.

I have to say it is negative because it isn't (stainless that is). I recently acquired my first sink made from this material and happily parked used tea bags on the corner until they cooled down. It stained.

Is there anyone out there, who is a better chemist than I, who can tell me how to reverse this?

p.s. I use a bowl for all the reasons given by previous posters.

I put my plastic bowl across the sink, and then there is space underneath for any tea/ coffee dregs to be disposed of, without getting the underneath if the bowl stained. DH seems not to use the half sink for anything!

I wish we had one of those half sinks, Auntieflo. They lookreally useful.