Can you please explain to clueless me how a single sink works?

[Thipu1]

WillyNilly's version is much like what we do with small variations. You also have to know that, in NYC, in-sink garbage disposals are not legal.  You  scoop the junk out of the strainer
  in the sink and put it into a trash bag. 

1) Soap up a sponge and start the hot water at a bit more than a trickle.

2) Wash and rinse the glasses.  Place on the drainer.

3) Wash and rinse the knives, forks and spoons.  Place in the drainer.  Once the little things are out of the way, the rest of the washing-up looks much less daunting. 

4) Pile the bowls for the side dishes in the sink. If necessary, put more soap on the sponge and go
 to work. Rinse under running water and place on the drainer. If the drainer's getting full, dry the glasses  and put them away.   

5) Do the plates in the way described above.

6) If you have something ugly to clean,  such as a fondue pot or  a lasagna pan,  squirt in more soap
 and hot water. Let the vessel sit for an hour or two.  Pour  yourself a glass of wine, turn on some nice music and relax.


Of course, if you have to pay a water bill your perception may be very different.     
   
         

[WillyNilly]

You also have to know that, in NYC, in-sinkf garbage disposals are not legal. 

Actually they were legalized in 1997.  But some buildings still ban them, and many people still don't know they are legal.  And since so many NYers have lived without them and are totally unfamiliar with them, they aren't really thought about as something to install. 

[Yvaine]

6) If you have something ugly to clean,  such as a fondue pot or  a lasagna pan,  squirt in more soap
 and hot water. Let the vessel sit for an hour or two.  Pour  yourself a glass of wine, turn on some nice music and relax.

I'm a big fan of this step. 

[siamesecat2965]

I do exactly what you do Willy Nilly. I have the item I am washing under a continuous stream of water from the tap. I take each item one at a time and wash and scrub it with a sponge and rinse it, keeping it under the tap stream the whole time. I don't ever fill up my sink and submerge my item into a sink pool at any point- either to wash or rinse. I would also guess that I use less or at least the same amount of water as if I did fill the sink. But, even if it did work out slightly more anyway, I'd still carry on doing it how I do because it's a personal preference and is just how I've always learnt to wash dishes.

Anyone could use the 'waste less water' argument for any activity that differs in frequency between people e.g. how to do laundry, how to wash the car, water the garden, when to flush etc.. etc..  but people have individual preferences and in the grand scheme of things, it's difficult to measure and people pay their bills and can choose how to use the water they pay for. I'm sure everyone uses a utility or resource in a way that others would think may at times be wasteful and vice versa but we're not talking about vastly excessive water wastage here (even if it can even be proved it uses more in the long run). I'm sure it may add up to a lot for some who pay on a meter or have high tariffs, but for others, it might only be a few more pence.

I sort of see the opposing points in this thread as similar to the bath vs shower argument. It's still unsure which one uses less water but even if there was conclusive evidence, I doubt people would change their lifestyle with regards to how they bathe - not just because the excess is likely to be minimal anyway, but mainly because some people just prefer baths over showers and some people just prefer showers over baths - for any number of reasons. Some people love baths whilst others don't like the thought of sitting in their bath water and having soapy suds on them when they come out so prefer showers. Each to their own!

Yes, yes, and yes. While I have a dishwasher, sometimes its full and I have some leftover dishes, or things that don't go in such as my wine glasses, pots and pans, and good knives.  I wash mine under continusouly running water as that's how i was taught to do them. But I never have so many the water is running for half an hour or more. I usually turn on the water, use my brush which has a sponge head and soap resivoir, and wash, then put them aside to be dried.

If something needs soaking, I will fill it with hot water and some soap, let it soak, and go back and wash later on.  I will say my water is included in my rent, so while I am not wasteful, at least not in my mind, I don't go nuts since I'm not paying for it.

I also take baths and showers

[Ereine]

The whole sink worth is cleaned in less then 10 minutes, usually less then 5, and while yes the water was running, it was always being used. Its not just running randomly down the drain at any point without any purpose.  The amount of water used total would not fill my sink even halfway full if it was stopped up so its certainly significantly less water then the method of filling two sinks with several inches of water. The water is running but its being used every moment. Much like how a shower uses significantly less water then a bath.

Here the average water speed (if you can call it that) is 10 liters per minute, so if the water is running at half the possible strength then for ten minutes that would be 50 liters which is about twice as what I use for my one sink and one tub (as for showers and baths, apparently a 5 minute shower with the water running the whole time is 75 liters, while a bath is from 150 to 200 liters, more if you shower afterwards). I pay a low fixed rate for water so it doesn't cost me anything, I just think that learning to conserve water is a good idea. Not that I'm blameless myself, I sometimes take baths and getting cold water from my taps can take some time and I wear cotton and rayon which take a lot of water to produce and have a flushing toilet and so on, I'm just pretty pessimistic about the future of the planet. 

[Arrynne]

I grew up with a single sink.  We always had two dish pans that fit in the sink. We filled one with soapy water and one with clear for rinsing. 

If it was only one or two items, I would moisten the sponge and put some soap on it. Then scrub the dishes and then rinse them quickly under a running stream of water.

[TootsNYC]

Here's how I do it. Stack the dishes in the sink. (put the pots and pans to the side w/ water standing in them)

Splash and spray them all with water, and let them sit a little bit.

Then squirt soap on the wet sponge and start washing them and setting the clean stuff off to the side of the stack in whatever open space (often on top of the cutlery). (Usually glasses first, bcs plates are stable ont he bottom.)

When I don't  have room to stack any more (3 or 4 glasses, sometimes; occasionally more, whatever), then I put the sponge down and rinse the clean, soapy dishes and put the in the rack. Turn off the water, and repeat (wash a few more items, again until I run out of elbow room; then rinse).

Sometimes I put the plug in the sink, and sometimes I don't. I usually do have to empty the water at least once, if I do this.

[RebeccainGA]

I grew up only washing dishes occasionally - it was a gross job, as they were often pretty stale and unpleasant (mom and dad weren't best at hygiene). I taught myself how to do dishes consistently when I moved out:
- Start water running (hot only) and put most-gross thing under the stream (pans, casserole dishes, etc). Fill it with the silver (no knives).
- once water has come to temperature, add cold - as little as possible to avoid burns only - and wet down dish wand (sponge replacement heads on a reservoir of soap). Start washing delicate things (glasses) and work up to the stuff that's really tricky (like that pan that's been under the water this whole time, letting the silver get washed off most of the way. Silver next to last, scrubbed individually but rinsed as a handful, and then that last really gross pan, using the water in it to rinse down everything that's stuck to the outside of the sink's bowl as you've been washing. Air dry.

Uses a minimal amount of water (I leave it all of about halfway on - even with the low-flow aerator, stream the size of a jumbo pencil at most).

[sevenday]

Not sure if it was mentioned before, but what I did when I moved into this place (single sink) was I went to Walmart and bought a dish drainer with one of those pads that directs the water back into the sink. Right next to them were these plastic tubs about the same size.  I would just run some cool water into the tub, put it on one side of the sink, dish drainer on the other - soapy water in the sink, swing left to dip into the water to rinse off, then cross over to the drainer to sit and wait until I was done.  Then I'd dry the dishes and use the rinse water to wash down any suds or whatever left when the sink drained.

[katycoo]

I guess I wasn't clear enough that it's just the perception of it, kind of like to some people not rinsing dishes seems really odd (it seems to me too, all our general dish washing soaps have warning labels and though it probably applies more to it undiluted, I still don't want digest it).

If you towel dry your dishes you don't nigest it anyway - you're wiping any residue off.

[Judah]

I have one of these, so I have the best of both worlds. 

I wash by stacking the dishes on the counter to the left of the sink.  Squirt a little soap on the sponge, scrub the dish, pass it under the running water, then leave it on the drying mat to dry. Since most things go in the dishwasher, I doubt I use enough water to even fill the sink.

[Thipu1]

You also have to know that, in NYC, in-sinkf garbage disposals are not legal. 

Actually they were legalized in 1997.  But some buildings still ban them, and many people still don't know they are legal.  And since so many NYers have lived without them and are totally unfamiliar with them, they aren't really thought about as something to install. 

Thanks, WillyNilly.  That's good to know although we won't be installing one.  After all, the gunk in the strainer is probably the cleanest thing in the house. 

[TootsNYC]

I guess I wasn't clear enough that it's just the perception of it, kind of like to some people not rinsing dishes seems really odd (it seems to me too, all our general dish washing soaps have warning labels and though it probably applies more to it undiluted, I still don't want digest it).

If you towel dry your dishes you don't nigest it anyway - you're wiping any residue off.

Or smearing it around? From dish to dish?

[Tilt Fairy]

What about food particles in addition to soap suds? If you don't rinse a plate and just put it on the drying rack after pulling it out of the pool of standing water it's been washed in, don't you sometimes miss the odd bit of tiny watery wet carrot or string of tomato or coriander leaf that gets loosely stuck to a plate as you pull it out the sink?

[Luci45]

I have one of these, so I have the best of both worlds. 

I wash by stacking the dishes on the counter to the left of the sink.  Squirt a little soap on the sponge, scrub the dish, pass it under the running water, then leave it on the drying mat to dry. Since most things go in the dishwasher, I doubt I use enough water to even fill the sink.

That is exactly what I do. I have put the plug in to see what would happen and it only filled the large sink about 3 or 4 ", so a lot less  water is used than the dishwasher would. I can't stand washing in wather that has even minute debris floating in it, so will continue washing under lightly running water when possible.