I have a few questions about my meat sink. First of all, we sometimes put parve pots and pans in it. Although we try to keep everything separate and use a parve sponge, sometimes the meat dishes are in the sink at the same time and everything gets washed with soap and a meat sponge. Does this affect the parve status of the pots and pans? Also, the other day we accidentaly put a dairy bowl and spoon into the meat sink. There were other dishes (meat, but haven’t been used for meat in 24 hours) in the sink as well. The dairy bowl and spoon were used for parve food. We took out the dairy things and washed them separately in another place. Should the spoon and bowl be kashered and is the status of the meat dishes that were inside the sink and the sink itself affected? Thank you for your answers.

Shalom, Keeping things straight in a kosher kitchen can get tricky sometimes, especially when you want to keep something parve, and not just separate milk from meat. In general you should make an effort to wash up the parve dishes in a sink by themselves, with a separate sponge. This way, even though they are being washed up in a sink that was used previously for milk or meat, because the sink was emptied and washed out, there is no chance of any of the milk or meat being transferred to the parve dishes. If parve dishes were put together in the sink with (say) meat dishes, it could be that the meat taste transfers to the parve dishes. Though this would be a rare occurrence - needing a hot meat pot to spill over to the parve dish, or a hot piece of meat to fall onto the parve dish etc - it could happen. So I would advice you to call a Rabbi if this ever happens. In regards to the milk bowl and spoon in the meat sink, it sounds like all contact in this case was made when the dishes were cold. If that is the case then everything is fine, and nothing needs to be koshered. Blessings.