Garbage Disposals???

[Tokie]

(a little hijack)Zen, how long are you going to make us keep watching that space? back to the disussion, I can personally attest that coffee grounds and any thin kind of peels (carrot,potato,apple etc) will not be properly liquified by the disposal and will go through and quite possibly glop up your drain and cost you a plumber's visit. Tokie

[Zen]

(a little hijack)Zen, how long are you going to make us keep watching that space?

about a week, keep watching!

[Blueberry]

They've outlawed garbage disposals in Raleigh, NC (plus, apparently they had already changed the regulations to say that you could only put soap and water down the pipes). Seems people 1) waste water and 2) put too much grease down them. Grease SHOULD NEVER go down a pipe.

Onions and pumpkin parts are particularly bad. Lemon peels are nice - they make the house smell good. Supposedly ice sharpens them too....

[sundial]

The only thing that ends up in my garbage disposal is the crumbs I dust off the plates before putting them in the dishwasher. I put most everything else in the garbage. Kali loves potato peelings so she gets to enjoy snacks when I'm in the kitchen. If you've ever had to clean a stopped up disposal, you'll not soon forget it.

[Trek420]

I have a brand new heavy duty Insinkerator brand disposal. It's no pansy.

ok, so, are you calling my disposal a wimp

I must defend the honor of my Legend Series Wasteking Insinkerator 9980

"of course, you know this means war"
~ bugs bunny

[SouthernBelle]

My brother the master plumber thinks garbage disposals are evil, though profitable. I don't have one since he plumbed my house.

[tulip]

My friend puts ice cubes in his disposal every week or so to break up whatever might be down there still.

I dislike disposals. I never had one before now, but my apartment that I've been in since August has one. My condo that I will move into in June does not.

I compost my fruit and veggie scraps--since I live in an apartment, I freeze them and bring them to a friend's house for composting. Yeah, I'm a compost geek, and proud of it.

[Zen]

Legend Series Wasteking Insinkerator 9980

You know a man came up with that name.

Wasteking ...

[anakiwa]

Except for the occasional egg shells (which, this time of year, are best dried, crushed, and added to your bird seed to supplement the calcium for egg-laying wild birds

Definitely not a good idea around here- last summer some of my neighbors had some un-invited bear visits to their bird feeders (the bear could climb up an outside wall to the balcony, and returned a few weeks later to the same condo units, even after the bird seed had been removed).

I know I should compost- I don't have a garden, but I could dump the stuff out back pretty easily- hmmm.

Thanks for all the comments- in retrospect I suspect I tried to jam too much stuff down all at once.

[Deanna]

I've had bad luck with just about any type of vegetable skin (apple, carrot, onion). Shot glasses are a bad idea too. Otherwise, I've been able to put just about anything down mine. I even put in chicken bones--otherwise my garbage hound of a dog knocks over the garbage can and digs them out.

[tulip]

I know I should compost- I don't have a garden, but I could dump the stuff out back pretty easily- hmmm.

You live in Vermont and you don't compost??? I thought for sure that was a law up there

I luv my compost!

[madscot13]

+1 for composting my family keeps an old plastic ice cream bucket around. the plastic top helps keep odors a way and they are easy to rinse. see it even reuses old things. you can keep it in the second basin of the sink or below in another catch all tub.


hmm I've never worried about how birds get Calcium, I've been so worried about mu own.

[susiej]

Moderately off-topic (but, you know, hey), disposals and college students DO NOT MIX. My husband's second roommate never really learned to clean up after himself: he'd leave dishes all over the place, pans on the stove. One day the kitchen really stank. Husband took out the trash. Cleaned out the fridge. Did the dishes. Still stank. Moved the stand-alone cabinet to look for dead rodents (none). Finally, the disposal came to mind. I made him look. Sure enough: compost. We opened the window, turned the water on high, hit the disposal switch. Whew! What a smell! Thankfully, with the food gone, the smell left in minutes.

We figure the roommate had never used a disposal before, that his parents would notice the food down the sink and turn it on for him.