Garbage Disposals

[fraggle551]

So all the time when I read magazines, or see those household tips segments on tv I hear all these tips for cleaning out your garbage disposal and removing the odor from it - then the though occurred to me - I don't know anyone with a garbage disposal! I was talking to my aunt about this yesterday and we both don't know anyone with one. So I figured it must be a regional thing - we're from Long Island, almost all of my family and friends live here or also in the Northeast, and no one has a garbage disposal. There must be some people out there in this world that have them, or else they wouldn't keep giving you tips for cleaning them!

So....what do you put down them? Where does it all go?!


So all you people out there with garbage disposals - where do you live? Do you use it all the time? Do most people around you also have one? Or are all those magazine writers and tv segment people just giving out garbage disposal cleaning tips to no one?

(I'm off all week and already very bored...can ya tell? )

 

[si-am]

I always had them in apartments, but we don't have one in our house (we have a septic tank-- probably not a good idea!)

I would use it mostly for small amounts of food left on plates or after prep work/chopping.

But they used to break all the time so I don't really miss it!

 

[Toad_Passenger]

The house we live in now came with one, and we live in Pennsylvania. Actually our neighbors have one, and most of our friends have one, also. We used ours heavily when we first bought the house, but, now that we have a vegetable garden, all of our scraps go into the compost pile.

I will say, though, that in a quick fix it's great to just be able to put stuff down there, grind it up, and wash it away!

 

[DrCavin]

Almost everyone I know has one. We put table scraps down it, some things don't do well like fatty meat or celery. Ours will start to smell if something doesnt grind up very well, so I feel around & see if anything is left. Never had a probem with them breaking, had a piece of metal get wedged in once. Not sure where the metal came from but had to use an allen wrench to spin the motor backwards to free it up.

 

[SC Minnie]

We have one. We also have a septic tank and the disposal was in the house when it was built. We don't use it a lot, put most of the scraps and such in the garbage.

 

[Feralpeg]

Every apartment and every home I've ever lived in has had one. I was from the Midwest, but now live in Florida.

I put table scraps down mine and things that would smell up the garbage such as onion peels. As mentioned before, meat scraps and very heavy things don't grind up well. Mine will stop working with things like chicken skin.

To keep mine clean, I grind up ice cubes about once a month. I've heard lemon also works well.

 

[ncmickeyluvr]

I'm in North Carolina and we have a disposal. When we first moved here, we rented a house that had one. After that, I REFUSE to be without one! One of the first things I had dh do when we bought this house was install a disposal.

 

[elgerber]

We have always had one. We use them to grind up scraps on our plates when we rinse them off, or pans etc. We do not put large quantities of anything in there, and some things just jam it up (meat, large amounts of potato peels etc). Mine is always fresh though, because I drink a lot of iced tea and I am always grinding up lemon. Eggshells help also.

 

[bethbuchall]

We've always had a garbage disposal, and I can't remember not having one growing up either. We've lived in western and central NYS and always been on public sewer. My husband grew up in a much older house with a septic tank, and they didn't (and still don't) have a garbage disposal there.

 

[Carly_Roach]

I'm from Michigan and I've had a disposal at various homes and apartments all my life. So far (knock wood) I've never had one break down on me. The longest running one I had was 12 years and for all I know that one's still going strong. It was in a house I moved out of and I know that disposal was fairly old when I moved in.

I put in potato peels, old spaghetti sauce, table scraps, etc, and it just grinds everything up and sends it down to the sewer with all the other household waste. The general rule of thumb is to put nothing in the disposal that you wouldn't put in your stomach, although I bend that rule and send egg shells down quite a bit.

My specific rule of thumb for good maintenance on a disposal is to turn on the water, then the disposal, spoon-feed the garbage into it (some people pile all their garbage in there and THEN turn it on) and then keep the water running for a few seconds after I turn off the disposal. That routine seems to keep me in good stead.

I'd hate to live without a garbage disposal!

 

[shortbun]

We compost so I don't use my disposal a lot. Every month or so, I put a large bowl full of ice down it. That's what the installer told me to do. We did this in our old house and had the same disposal for 15 years, no problems. The ice supposedly cleans and sharpens the blades. I wouldn't put egg shells, fat, potato peels, down it and I'd run the cold water before, during and after use.

 

[BunsenH]

Almost everyone I know has one. We put table scraps down it, some things don't do well like fatty meat or celery. Ours will start to smell if something doesnt grind up very well, so I feel around & see if anything is left. Never had a probem with them breaking, had a piece of metal get wedged in once. Not sure where the metal came from but had to use an allen wrench to spin the motor backwards to free it up.

Not a recommended method.

 

[fraggle551]

I guess we don't have them because almost everyone here has septic tanks, so it would clog them up. I can't imagine putting scraps of food down the sink - i'm always scraping them out cause it gets clogged! It does seem kind of handy to have one though.

 

[FireDancer]

I've had one in just about every house or apartment I've lived in and I've lived in NE Ohio and Clearwater, FL. When I bought my current house it didn't have one but that was one of the first things I had put in. It is so much easier to just rinse plates or dump small bits of food in the sink and let the disposal handle it.

So far I haven't had one clog and I've never had any bad odors come out of it. I make sure to always run water while it is on and for at least a few seconds after it is done to try and get any left over particles down the drain.

The only person I know of that doesn't have on is my grandma but I'm sure there are some others that I just haven't noticed. I don't think I know anyone with a septic tank either and I never thought that would matter. Guess I learned something new today.

 

[LuvOrlando]

I totally love my disposal & use it for peel & stuff like that. I especially like that I don't have to fish stuff out after rising plates, pots & pans... I used to hate that when I was kid ick.

I always see the stuff at the store for stinky disposals but I've never had that problem so I don't know what they are talking about unless maybe the old ones get standing water issues or the plastic gets funky

 

[Mrs.Toad]

It's always interesting to see the regional differences on the DIS! I have never not had a garbage disposal, and I don't think I know of anyone who doesn't have one (or if they don't, they never told me ). I grew up in Southern California and now live in Colorado.

We put small food scraps down the disposal. No bones, nothing too big, and nothing stringy like celery or asparagus, because the strings can get wrapped around the blades. There are conflicting opinions on putting egg shells down it, with some believing that the shells help clean the blades, and others believing that the shells get caught in the pipes and cause clogs. But my family (both growing up and now) has been putting egg shells down the disposal for as long as I can remember and we've never had a clog.

We did put too many potato peelings down the disposal at my aunt's house one Christmas and it created a horrible mess. Since then, I never put potato down it.

We always keep it running for maybe 10-15 seconds after the last scrap has been put in, turn it off and keep the water running another 30 seconds or so, to make sure everything is flushed away. We run ice, lemon wedges or orange peels through it and it doesn't get stinky.

 

[mamamary]

I'm in Maryland and I have one and I think most people here do. My mom in NY does not have one and when I rented an apt. in NY there wasn't one there either.

 

[pixiewings71]

I have one, we are in CA, I've had one in every apt or house I've lived in here. We don't use it for everything, just some things. My Mom has one, she's in ID.

 

[XYSRUS]

I live in rural Ohio with well water, septic AND a disposal. Never a problem. Everything left over on plates goes down the disposal! Oh, and I've never lived without one.

 

[simba20]

My husband and I just bought our firsthome, with out first garbage disposal. However, to prevent clogs (as we had one a few months ago and the dishwasher didn't drain), I don;t put much down it. I still use strainers, and then whatever particles are left in the sink after rinsing/washing dishes, that's when I run it.

Because I've never had one growing up, it's not one of those MUST HAVES for me.

I live in the South, and most new homes have them.