Never Put Down the Garbage Disposal

With garbage disposals, the best way to think of them is that they’re really designed for the stuff that comes off when you’re actually cleaning your dishes. Best practce is always to go ahead and dispose of the big chunks,
scrape your plate off right into the trash can.

If you get a really high horsepower model, they’ll grind bones, oyster shells, they can grind almost anything. The problem is less about the wear and tear on a disposal and more about the impact of the items on your draining system.

Steer clear of tossing a range of things into their garbage disposal, including fat, grease, oil, seafood shells, meat, bones, fruit pits, eggshells, cucumber peels and starchy foods like pasta, potatoes and oats.

Starches, including rice, are a disposal no-no, it all comes down to clumping. If you ever cook a pot of pasta or rice, it sticks together. So, when you grind it up, some will go down the drain, but those starches can stick to the side of your line. What will happen is you get build up, little by little. And then next thing you know, your kitchen sink is overflowing.

One of the simplest things you can do to help mitigate risk of a backup is to make sure that before you run the disposal, you start running some cold water and then after the disposal is off, let that cold water run for another 45 seconds to a minute. That way any food debris has a chance to catch some water and flow out of the trap and then down further into your drainage system.

Just a Reminder from your Twin Rocks Sanitary District.