For the last two weeks, I've washed my frying pan daily in the sink in my apartment unit. Occasionally, after cooking something in the pan, black charred bits, usually tiny bits of charred debris from whatever I was cooking, fell down the drain. I did not use any grease, and used the sink for no other purpose. Now the sink is clogged, and one of my roommates is blaming it on me.
The thing is, I don't think it was me; he also uses the sink, as do the other roommates. That was my only use of the sink, and I didn't think that little bits of charred debris would suddenly cause such a deeply clogged drain, or even clog the drain at all, for that matter. But after he saw me washing the pan one night, my roommate claimed that the "carbon" in the bits of debris is exactly what clogged the drain. The drain is really, really clogged, and I've before never heard the notion that tiny, charred bits would clog a big sink.
I want to know whether his claim is right on (and I'm just ignorant) or completely bogus. Is bits of carbon from charred pot-and-pan debris a common cause of clogged sinks? Can I continue to wash pans in the sink?
Thanks for any help you can provide.