What don't you put in the disposer?

[panthera]

Scott,

There should always be a one-way valve between the dishwasher pump and the disposer connection (dishwashers usually empty directly into the disposal).
I have often read - and certainly my experience confirmed it - that the angle of the waste pipe from the disposal is crucial. If there is any bend or rise, waste will gather there with 100% certainty.
When I replaced my folk's 50+ year old unit last summer, I had the drains reamed out. It is unbelievable how much faster the water now drains. Obviously, here to there is a real danger of blockage from the disposall if the plumbing system is dirty or slightly clogged - or poorly laid in.
You can get the one-way valve at any marine or camping store in case your appliance dealer looks at you like you are crazy, make sure to get one rated for hot water. Bet your plumber used one and that is why the problem is solved.

 

[foraloysius]

I dove into this matter and the outcome is a little different than I assumed. According to European rules the draining of solid food particles through a disposer are forbidden. But it's not forbidden to sell or own them. Typical European law I think. I also found an article about a kitchen store giving them away with a kitchen in 1996 which caused apparently some huha from the government here. I don't think the government is controlling this actively.

 

[fnelson487]

I Have Always Put Everything Down It!

For the most part, I have always had TOL KitchenAid. The Hobarts could grind up most everything. I have a new KitchenAid which Jeff tells me is an ISE, still a good machine, but I miss the Wham-Jam button which vibrated the whole unit if it got jammed (Good-bye broom handles). The one thing I have learned over the years is that a good practice is to clean out the drain pipes all the way to the street if you put a new one in. Did that and have never had a problem. Thank goodness I haven't had to deal with a septic system. Just keep that water running and drain the DW through it.

 

[fnelson487]

One Thing!!

I just thought about one thing I never put down the disposer. Learned this one a while back. Corn silk from corn on the cob is asking for trouble. Other than that - bones, corn cobs, everything short of glass and paper. That reminds me, one of my housekeepers used to empty the bathroom trash cans with the central vac. Had to stop that business!!

 

[vivalalavatrice]

Disposer??? Ma figuriamoci...

I think that is a tipical American appliance! As Louis said in Europe you can buy and own a disposer while is forbidden to dispose rubbish (as any other solid particles) throughout the waste line of your kitchen! What a fun LOL...

Usually here in condos you have TWO separate wasteline: one for water closet only (which is bigger), and the other for bathroom and kitchen sink (wich is smaller). Different is for detached house thar are allowed to have only one wasteline...

We don't dispose any waste food, we compost for our garden!

 

[sudsmaster]

True story

In my town, around the year 1998, the local waste management service sent out mail to all its customers encouraging them to buy and use garbage disposers to reduce the amount of food waste in the trash... That seemed rather strange to me.

They also prohibited adding fruit from trees along with green waste they collected every week in huge bins.

A few years later - perhaps in response to pressure from the local sewage treatment plant and environmentalists - they reversed course and started handing out little 2 gallon green trash cans with lids, and made available little brown paper bags to put in them. You were supposed to put all your kitchen food waste in them and then add that to the huge green waste containers so it all could be composted at the local waste collection facility. They even started inspecting green waste containers and you'd get an annoying note left by the garbage man if you hadn't put any food waste in the container that week.

My neighbor and I were up in arms about this, because by that time we were both composting most of our food waste in our back yards.

I still can't get over how they were actually trying to shift part of the waste load to the local sewage treament plant...

 

[hoover1060]

wow

What fun is having a disposer if you can't use it?
Half the fun is the DRAMA of putting something down and listening to it devour!

 

[neptunebob]

Don't put macaroni or pasta down a disposer!

It will turn into dough in the drain pipe! We don't put much down our disposal because the drain line is poorly laid out (and prone to clog) but it's good to have the machine for gross food messes.

Awhile back, there was a thread about GE disposalls. Makes me wonder, why don't they promote there disposals more today - Seems like that company is not using their "Ecomagination". Nep

 

[hooverwheelaway]

Today I pondered putting the top of a pineapple down the disposal. I had just finished cutting it up, and had put all of the rest down it.. I then got the overwhelming feeling of really not wanting to clog then unclog the drain today, so I placed it in the trashcan and walked away.

Nobody got hurt.

 

[tolivac]

We need to convince Germans disposers are the way to go-and fun--We all can't have SSI or Komar shredder compactors in our homes-but you can have the disposer-grinds up stuff on a smaller scale.I would think disposer fans would love the shredder-compactor videos on the komar,SSI,Sanitech websites.Again can't see the desire for the "garbage bins"--unless you want to be swampted in rats,cockroaches,raccons,possums,and street cats.How nasty and dangerous-and you can't get your .22 and shoot at the rats.How unfun!!Thats interesting bout putting pasta down the disposer-never thought of it turning to dough and clogging the plumbing-like paper turning into pulp-rehardening and clogging the lines.For the above--bet the Roto-Rooter guy recommends putting those down the disposal so he can come back and rooter your plumbing!

 

[panthera]

yeah, well - don't hold your breath

Rex, you have not encountered stubborness until you have met a "grüner" Politiker. They care more about their ideas than about people.
We do have 'coons - and that is good, they chase away the rats.
Our rubbish collectors (no political correctness over here so janitors are still janitors and sanitary engineers are the women and men who design and install lavatory fixtures...) lecture us every week because of all the bad things we have done. For many years, coffee filters were forbidden in the "braune Tonnen" - the bio-rubbish bins. Now they are encouraged.
It is all one very big mess. We now have three paper containers and two bio- containers in our little rubbish shed. To make space for them, they took out two of the normal containers. And all the glass/plastic/white metal containers. So now we have overflowing "normal" trash, have to walk about 15 minutes to recycle the glass (3 colours), plastics (two types), white metals...and the bio-rubbish bins have resulted in rats so big the cats are afraid of them.
But the Greens want to expand this nonsense even further. In Munich, we will soon be punished with fines if the trash collectors find that we have not sorted our rubbish correctly.

 

[vivalalavatrice]

Pasta in the Disposer?!?!?!?!?

What a shame! Pasta NEVER would be left! My mom says it always, "Mangiala tutta!" You have to calculate the right amount of pasta per person... more or less 0.070 Kg each one, that means that 1 kilo would be enough for 8-10 people!

I eat at least one portion of pasta every day! Sometimes twice a day, what awful wasting of meal there would be if we didn't calculate the righ amount?!?

Pasta can be bounced in the wok, if you have some pasta left... Put it in the wok with medium calor, then add a bit of butter, some scrubbed cheese (and some scrubbed bread too if you like) and make them bouncing...MMMHM!!! What a wonderful way to prepare your dinner if you have some pasta left from lunch and nothing else... better with garlic and tomatoes! ))

About European rules, I asked my father how does it works: of course no government agent will never come to your house to check what do you waste in your kitchen sinks, but is FORBIDDEN to waste "any solid material that is not bio-degradable" throughout the waste line, so I suppose that all you take away from your dishes can surely be wasted through the disposer, such as bones or fruit skin, but absolutely NO the paper cases like pizza boxes of like take-away of chinese restaurant!!! LOL

Rich, here it works exactly like over there! What a strange thing, we're so far but something works the same!
Here (better, in condos'town), people have to sort trash: PLASTIC-PAPER-GLASS-HUMUS-UNSORTABLE!!! Each category has a different color bags and the garbage men collect them home-to-home.
As we live out of town, on the hill (detached house), for us it works a bit differently: we have the same to sort our trash in the same way, but for PLASTIC-PAPER-GLASS-UNSORTABLES we put them separately in the local waste collectors(no home-to-home collectors for us), and for HUMUS, we compost every kitchen waste (that would have been throuwn away) in the back yard composter.

 

[vivalalavatrice]

Sort the trash!!!!

I read all the posts before have written mine, sorry.

That's how it works, in Europe everyone MUST sort the trash...IT'S COMPULSORY! I don't know if it works like so in US too, but I'd like to know! ) Like you would do with laundry...

By the way of trash, I remeber whan I was young what strange system to avoid rats&cats over the trash, in south of Italy, in my granma's condo,they used to hang down the balcony the trash bags and the garbage man had only to pick up it away, now they don't do like so again, but the cannot put the rubbish in the conainers until a certain hour established by the local management, anyway I think hanging trashbags would be the best solution absolutely, then what fun!!!

 

[tolivac]

I don't have curbside trash pickup-so I take mine to one of the county wide "transfer stations"These are "drive-up" facilities-they have several dumpsters-one for appliances and other metal goods,another for kraft type cardboard boxes,another for cans and bottles-then each has a Marathon compactor and container for general trash-and folks love to watch their trash get smushed-esp the kids.These places are clean and don't cost anything to use-your local taxes here already paid for the faclilty.And those "Braune Tonnen" dumpsters--how often are they emptied--If they sit for more than 3 days-could also be a good breeding place for flies.3 days is considered the fly egg laying to larvae stage.(maggots)The dumpsters at the place I go to are emptied every couple of days.Theres very few flies and rats there-one time a cat was in the compactor container!! surprized-and so was the operator-He mentioned the cat was rescued from it and lived around the place for several years after.They were sad when he died.-It wasn't from being in the compactor--Guess that cat--how many "lives" did he lose?He was so lucky he didn't get smushed in the compactor.The dump operator said it took awhile to clean him up.

 

[hoover1060]

A Garage

is something I lack, so if I put food garbage in the trash I might just as well put a sign out that says RACOON AND POSSUM BUFFET HERE.
Cleaning that up is NOT fun.
I've never heard that pasta would clog drains, but I have heard from several people that rice should not go down the drain because its very sticky and can clog drains.

What I will say is if people came in and wanted to take away appliances from my kitchen I'd let them have the dishwasher, but would fight for the disposal. So much more sanitary!

 

[panthera]

ah, but the southern Italians

learned the hard way how important it is to prevent dangerous bugs from getting a chance - whether typhous, malaria - you name it, they fought it. And won.
Here in Germany the bio-müll is emptied once a week. Well, that is here in Munich. Of course it stinks, of course we have magets and all the other problems.
But the greens are inflexible. People have to be educated until they understand the "right way".
I grew up with a mum who believes firmly in organic gardening - but our three year compost piles sure didn't stink or encourage rats...and she never ever tries to make anybody see the world "her" way. Since living here, I tend to throw more things away then to recycle just cause the Greens make me so angry with their raised-finger attitude.

 

[toggleswitch]

Don't like handling the basket.

I don't like to clean the little strainer-basket thingy at the bottom of the kitchen sink in the drain.

Got a disposal. I throw EVERYTHING in the sink. Then I load the DW. With a paper-towel I scoop out all the crud, toss it into the garbage can.

Whatever incidentals fall into the unfiltered, un-screened, un-strained drain-hole get ground up and flushed.

I also tend to discard soups and such in the kitchen sink & disposer rather than the commode. At least it will be partially ground-up. I had a problem with larger food items getting stuck on tree roots in the sewer line.

Hello roto-rooter?
CAREFUL LINK HAS SOUND

http://www.rotorooter.com/main.php

 

[sudsmaster]

In my town, we used to have to presort recyclables. We had three different bins, plus the regular trash and the green yard trimmings. Five in all. Then the waste management facility got "smart" and instead of the five bins, we have only three now: regular (gray), yard trimmings/food wastes (green), and metal/paper/plastic (blue). They hired a bunch of people who do nothing but sort through the blue stuff in a big open warehouse down by the bay. Of course our rates went up to pay for all of this, but I think it is worth it. Now I can stuff that nasty styrofoam packing in the blue container and nobody says a thing about it. I don't know what they do with it, but it doesn't come back.

The reason for all this is that the various waste management facilities in the state have been given an ultimatum to halve the amount of waste that goes into landfills by half by a certain date. The more they recycle, the better.

Oh, and we have militant greens here - just about 20 miles north of here lies the hotbed of radical thought in the USA, Berkeley. I used to live there, and I still like the town, but I'm kind of glad I don't have to put up with some of the associated nonsense on a daily basis.

 

[hoover1060]

Check this out!!

Looks like ISE is coming out with a new line and a totally NEW mechanism!!
There is some more info on their website as well, I wonder if these are in the stores yet?

Pardon Our Interruption...

 

[sudsmaster]

Um, a properly managed compost pile should have no foul odors.

It should also not attract raccoons and possums. I compost shredded yard clippings (fairly large volume) and kitchen food waste in Biostack compost bins, which have lids. The lids are not locking, and we have plenty of raccoons and possums here, but I've never had one disrupt the compost bins.

The fish ponds and fruit trees are another story ;-).