Why do Irish people use Plastic basins in Sinks?

in 2014 it will be so we can use the water again and again and again and again and again.

Do you hear me Phil Hogan, raise vat and import duty on plastic basins immediately as everyone will have one in every sink in the country.

To keep the sink clean. See it all makes sense in an Irish way...

Because we cant afford stoppers/

Well, most places have a dishwasher nowadays from what I can see. Even tony bedsits often have them.

I wouldn't live in a place with no dishwasher. I absolutely hate washing dishes. They never look clean properly and its a waste of time. Modern dishwashers also use LESS water and energy than doing it by hand! Old ones used to be major energy hogs.

If you've a single sink, a basin means you create a situation where you can wash the dishes in the basin and rinse them down the side into the sink.

It's commonly done in France too, even more so as dishwashers are far less common than in Ireland.

I had a flatmate in England (English lass) who used to wash dishes in Fairy liquid, not rinse them and dry them off with a manky tea towel!
We all got food poisoning and I'm convinced it was her dishwashing habits even though she blamed a takeaway!

If you have a dishwasher, you just need more dishes and cutlery than if you're washing your dishes constantly all day.

Ours also does a 38 min cycle which is perfectly adequate for most things.

Also, I've noticed some people have OCD about pre-rinsing dishes. There's absolutely no need to do that, you just vaguely scrape them off i.e. don't put in an entire carrot.

Dishwashers, unless they're utterly cheap crap, have a filter that is primarily self cleaning.

The machine does a short cold pre-wash which dislodges any loose bits of food. During the wash the water's sucked horizontally through the fine mesh filters, catching any fine dirt, when the machine empties, the water's sucked vertically (downwards) through the filter which has large openings. The drain pump will happily flush any small items away and pump them down the drain. Really large items, if you've forgotten to scrape, just sit on top of the filter tray in the end.

Personally, I just hate the idea of washing dishes. It's a pain in the ass. It takes ages. It's really messy. It doesn't do a good job and your hands get all dry and stuff.

It's totally pointless drudgery in my opinion. Dishwashers aren't expensive, they're easy to install and I wouldn't consider them any more a 'luxury item' than a washing machine.

The modern ones aren't environmentally unfriendly (using tiny amounts of water, and no more power than it would take to heat water to wash dishes by hand).

I also use ecological dishwasher detergent, Ecover, which does a perfect job. So, I'm having no major environmental impact.

You used to get the odd mad housewife back in the 1960s/70s claiming that washing machines were a tool of the devil too.

For some reason some people in Ireland and Britain sometimes just seem to like self-flagellating house work and doing things in the most awkward way possible!

Another example of this is non-mixer taps! Why the hell would anyone in their right mind install a separate hot and cold tap? It's not cheaper and it either freezes your hands or scalds them!
Or you've got those wonderful British-made specials where there are two openings at the top nozzle on the tap that don't actually mix the water - so it simultaneously scalds and freezes you!

Deleted User wrote: »

I use one because I now live with two drunks who think it's acceptable to vomit into the kitchen sink when they stumble in at night. Doesn't matter if the sink is full of dishes or not, they lean in and let it all out.

That's where the basin comes in handy - you simply empty it on their bed the following morning!