Top Five Places to Use a Portable Sink and How They Work

Good hand hygiene is a must — and in recent times, can be lifesaving. Everyone knows the importance of handwashing before and after food preparation and meals, after being outdoors, and in contact with commonly touched surfaces, and after handling tools and equipment. But where do you wash your hands when there isn’t a washroom?

Portable sinks allow you to maintain good hand hygiene even in settings when there is no washroom access or working plumbing hot and cold water. A portable sink can be quickly and easily set up to ensure that handwashing is possible when needed.

How Portable Sinks Work

As their name suggests, you can set up a portable sink anywhere. Portable sinks come in a variety of basin sizes and depths to accommodate various needs, ranging from simple handwashing to cleaning larger cookware.

Simply take your portable sink out of its packaging and roll it to the desired location. Once set up, fill the tank with water and plug it into a power source. Each tank refill should support anywhere between 70 to 100 hand washes. Store some spare tanks nearby for easy refilling. Foot-powered switches and motion-sensitive faucets are additional features available to help you conserve water.

Portable sinks have separate fresh and wastewater tanks. One dispenses clean water and the other waste removing the risk of contamination. Many portable sinks also dispense hot water using a heater and pump within the cabinet to ensure effective handwashing. Once full, simply empty the wastewater tank into any drain, and restart the sink.

Where to Use Portable Sinks

Are you setting up an outdoor event or construction site? Portable sinks are a must-have in many outdoor settings that lack access to a working plumbing system or anywhere it would be cost-prohibitive to install. Here are some places a portable sink is most useful.

1. Outdoor food festivals and events

Summer is the season of all sorts of fun under the sun, and at the top of this list of seasonal attractions is outdoor food festivals. For customers, the selling point is the unique dining experience itself — they get to choose from a range of food trucks offering various novelty treats and signature flavours they wouldn’t enjoy anywhere else.

Unfortunately, outdoor settings are also often synonymous with little to no washroom access: this can be challenging for customers and vendors, who both need to wash their hands.

Portable sinks can rectify the situation by serving as mobile handwashing and cleaning stations. With portable sinks set up throughout the venue, guests can wash their hands before and after enjoying their food. At the same time, vendors can maintain food safety standards to ensure that their signature dishes are just as flavourful as they are clean and safe for hearty consumption.

Portable sinks can prevent illness and infection from food safety issues, and offer a much cleaner alternative to hand sanitizers and rubbing alcohol. These can also be set up next to porta-potties, so guests and vendors alike can freshen up and enjoy their day outdoors.

2. Farmers’ markets

Similar to food festivals and events, farmers’ markets also have to adhere to food safety standards primarily through proper and frequent handwashing and sanitation. For farmers’ markets, however, the risk is higher: produce contamination needs to be avoided at all times. Add this to popular market attractions — like cooking demos — and you’ll be dealing with a much-increased risk of contamination.

Portable sinks allow you to set up handwashing and cleaning stations in outdoor locations with no washroom and kitchen access. Vendors can sanitize their produce and practice frequent handwashing for food safety, while guests can roam more freely, knowing they can easily clean up even with no traditional washrooms available.

Providing tools they need to practice good hygiene can significantly lower the risk of exposure to harmful bacteria.

3. Remote construction sites

Portable sinks are often associated with maintaining good hand hygiene, but their applications go beyond that. As mobile cleaning stations, portable sinks have become indispensable in remote work locations, such as construction sites, where the infrastructure for a working plumbing system is yet to be laid out.

Portable sinks can be set up in construction sites to allow employees access to the bathroom where proper facilities have not been set up. It also provides a way to clean their equipment after contact with harmful chemicals, dirt, and gravel to avoid contamination.

With a portable sink on the job, you can maintain a clean and safe work site from construction to turnover and use — essential standards in workplace safety that help employees do their work and adhere to industry practices.

4. Classrooms and schools

It’s a fact of life — kids play with their hands and get messy, and unconsciously pass on germs and bacteria to their peers, teachers, and families without proper intervention. While it’s routine to take young students to the washroom or sink for handwashing before and after snacks and lunchtime, or after art class and playtime, crowd control can be a challenge when there are lots of kids to manage.

Installing portable sinks in classrooms and common areas reduce the effort teachers need to instill good hand hygiene in young students. These sinks can be set up for classroom use, with adjustments to accommodate child-friendly heights and safe step-tools for comfortable and practical use.

Portable sinks designed for classroom use are also built with a locking mechanism, so only teachers can operate them and keep them out of reach when not designated for use.

5. Offices and clinics

Portable sinks are a welcome addition to any office or clinic with limited real estate and feature only single-occupancy washrooms. By installing portable sinks with single or multiple basins in locations like treatment rooms, you can decongest traffic to traditional restrooms, and ensure that equipment is kept clean at all times in a single area.

These portable sinks come in 304 stainless steel to maintain a polished and professional look to match your office interiors and overall brand.

To learn more about portable sinks and where to set them up, call Ancaster Food Equipment at (855) 888-9644, or contact us here.