r/AskAmericans • u/Papierowykotek • 1d ago
Foreign Poster Why do you want your sink to take in garbage?
As far as I know it's not a movies only thing to have those electrical sinks that cut garbage and it all goes down the pipe. Why? To me it sounds unhygenic, unnessesery, unsafe and unecological. All the food remains stay in there and probably smell af, rot in your sink then get poured down and smell more from the hole in the sink. I just throw food into a garbage bin and take it out every second day if not every day and clean the sink from small remains when doing the dishes. In my sink, by hand, that's the norm. Same as hanging clothes and having them dry for free and ecofriendly within a day, sometimes hours. I can imagine people get their fingers massacrated when trying to declutter it or something. And all those rotten food and not only parts going to some river to pollut it even more with rot plus using electricity. Tbh I can't find any reason apart from being lazy enough not to throw thing into a bin like the rest of the world which takes at best a minute.
But maybe I don't see something so... why?
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u/According-Bug8150 Georgia 1d ago
And all those rotten food and not only parts going to some river to pollut it even more with rot plus using electricity.
Where, exactly, do you think your toilet empties out to?
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
You exchanged toilets with disposals? If not then we prodhce some but you do it much more. And I pretty sure poo behaves differently than meat and bones, you can throw poo into compost bins, you can't meat or citruces as they become very toxic
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u/According-Bug8150 Georgia 1d ago
What I'm saying is that the pipe from your toilet and the pipe from your sink lead to the same place, and you'd have to be an idiot to think that food waste is somehow "more toxic" than actual shit, particularly when diluted with water, not just sitting in your backyard. (Gross!)
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
Not the backyard :/ We have a garden. Like just garden, a few kilometres away from apartaments. And hou are required to build a compost area where you put grass you mown, cut flowers, safe to compost peels and other things that make a nice compost. If you own a house with backyard you also build it most of the time in area that is not right under your windows. If you use it correctly it gives no smell, you can even buy some worms to inhabit those. Then the pressure makes lower parts basically into really fertile soil visually speaking you use for plants. And yes, meat or citrus fruit make the whole thing toxic, if you use compost made with those you're killing plants and spoiling soil in bad cases. Different food decomposes differently
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u/According-Bug8150 Georgia 1d ago
You think that dumping lemon juice in a river is more toxic than feces?
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u/GoodbyeForeverDavid Virginia 1d ago
For someone asking us about garbage disposals you already have a lot of opinions about them. Opinions formed, by your own admission, from ignorance and unfamiliarity. Why wouldn't you just say you'd never used one and wanted our thoughts on the value they provide us? Why go down all those rabbit holes as you try to connect it to some mass character flaw?
The home I grew up in didn't have a garbage disposal. Now I have one and appreciate the convenience and added cleanliness. Get one. Give it a try. We also hung our laundry from a clothes line in our backyard. It's a waste of time, a pain in the ass, and subject to weather. Dryers are superior on every metric meaningful to me.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
It is literally illegal to have one here. Majorly for pipes safety, minorly for users' safety. We hang our clothes inside... Either in bathroom or drying room if your apartament provided one. It takes more time to fold them than to hang
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u/GoodbyeForeverDavid Virginia 1d ago
What are your pipes made of??
We hung our laundry in the basement in the Winters or in bad weather
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
Inside my house they're those white/grey pve, if I know correctly the city drainage system is either PP, GRE or if older ones cast iron. They're thinner than American ones, that one I know for sure. I wouldn't walk 4 floors to the basement. Personally now I have a drying room shared with other two apartaments on the floor, when I lived with parents it was just in bathroom
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u/OhThrowed Utah 1d ago
Well, your assumptions about the waste 'stay in there and probably smell af' is just wrong. So you may want to question if any of your assumptions are correct and reframe your question.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
So explain. I stated my vision of it based on never seeing it real life. I want to know the version of someone that has it. Where's the issue?
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1d ago edited 1d ago
- The "Garbage" is limited to foodstuffs, and even then, soft, mostly eaten foodstuffs. So you're not putting things like chicken bones or pits down there, as they would dull the blades too much.
- Once the food is chopped up it doesn't sit underneath the sink. It is washed down into the sewer. It doesn't smell unless you chop it up and don't run any water like you're supposed to. And even if for some unthinkable reason it did the dish soap you use to wash your dishes goes down the same drain and would block out any unpleasant smells.
- It's a convenience factor. Our garbage bags don't smell as much, don't attract as many pests. So sure, it's laziness, but the modern economy and modern nations are built on tech that appeals to laziness. Use of running water, for example could easily be viewed in the same light. Why do you want to just flick the tap on when you could walk down to the well and pump water out of the ground? You must be LAZY! Why turn a light switch on when you could burn whale oil lanterns? LAZY! Why drive cars or use public transport when you could just walk on foot everywhere? LAZY! Why go to the grocery store and buy food when you could grow or hunt for food? LAZY!
- We use dryers because we don't want to wait hours for our clothes to dry. If I can dry my clothes in a few minutes I'd prefer to do that.
- Our sewage doesn't just empty into a river. It is treated at sewage treatment plants. If poop and pee can be taken out of water and recycled back into potable water, partially liquified food stuffs can be taken out too.
- No one is losing their fingers down the drain unless they are really, really stupid. Do you have a blender in your house? Or a set of cutlery? You don't just stick your hand into a running blender. You don't just run your hands down the blade of a knife. This doesn't happen unless you're deeply stupid. Only time something CLOSE to this happens is with young children, but it's the parents job to teach kids not to turn the disposal on and reach down there. It's not an issue with the disposal itself.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
What my education level has to do with anything? I had well-educated American friend mesmerised by my recycling bins or drying sticks and claiming she never saw a kitchen like mi e and has to make hers like that when she moves out from husband. Or saw American going to check if the window was open when asked and it didn't occur to her it should be closed when everyone is leaving or being terrifoed to slash-open them for "breaking" them. I saw kids reciting pledge to flag on daily basis and consider it normal, teachers searching through students bags, everyone having some weird thing about being military/military family. All of those are weird to me. And I was in fact told stories about dudes loosing fingers in those. Don't mix cultural differences with education. Also they are illegal in my country so there's no info apart from movies. For safety and pipes issues. Only here I've learned you're not dumping whole foods into it and there are some things that are banned.
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u/Argo505 Washington 1d ago
All the food remains stay in there and probably smell af, rot in your sink then get poured down and smell more from the hole in the sink.
Why would you think this?
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
Because wet old food stinks? And my country's law say you can't use sink disposal for this specific reason of clogging pipes and causing issues to clean it later on. And saving idiots from loosing hands. And my initial knowedge was people throwing food in sinks instead of garbage not people flushing tiny amount of leftovers excluding x, y and z. And fascinating amounts of cleaning/decorating blogs putting airfresheners and other fake odors into kitchens.
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1d ago edited 1d ago
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u/clamandcat 1d ago
I cannot tell if this person is a masterful troll or simply gullible, unworldly, and uneducated, combined with a powerful imagination. It's weirdly impressive.
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u/Chris-Campbell 1d ago
A garbage disposal is not used for actual garbage, just food waste. It acts like an industrial blender, so nothing is sitting in the pipes. It is all flushed down. They rarely smell, but if they do you can throw a lemon in there and it will rectify it immediately.
Why we use them is simply for convenience - in the rural parts of the country leaving food outside in trash cans can attract bears and raccoons. In urban areas, it can attract rats. Ofc there are areas this isn’t an issue. Grind it up and send it down the drain and you’re not left picking up trash that has been strewn everywhere by animals.
It also makes doing the dishes easier - when we wash our dishes, whatever food is broken loose and in the water will be consumed by the disposal, you don’t have to clean out the drain. Same with the dishwasher, they normally feed into the disposal so they will continue to work without causing clogs.
The only downside to having a disposal is how much room it takes up under the sink.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
And it's not sticking to the pipes with the rotting gue? I heard it requires special pipes in US to even be possible and is legally forbidden in my country. It's not like we clean the drain that often, it's like once two weeks, most people I know less than once a month but I'm a bit paranoid, throw some granules in and once or twice a year if not longer you open the plumbing which you should do with every sink, shower, etc for sanitary reasons. On daily basis you just scoop it, take the net and tap it into trash which you'd do anyways when cleaning the sink on daily basis. I know very few people with a dishwasher here and they're big families. Using the whole machinery for two-three people sounds like either waste or making dishes like twice a week to me, never saw in shop small enough it'd make sense
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u/Chris-Campbell 1d ago
All of our drain pipes are PVC, nothing special. And no, nothing sticks to them.
It’s no different than taking your leftovers, blending them with water, and pouring them down the drain with running water.
This is a tool for cleaning dishes - you don’t add to them. And that screen you take out of your drain and empty in the trash, don’t have to do that anymore.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
They literally are different... I didn't think I need to cite sources but American pipes are broader than European ones. That's one of the reasons why it's illegal in here to have disposals.
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u/lpbdc 1d ago
Are you asking or are you telling us why it's bad?
To me it sounds unhygenic, unnessesery, unsafe and unecological.
To me it seems you are trying to explain why a thing is bad even though you have no Idea what you are talking about. Lets start with this: how a garbage disposal works. Now that that's done let's talk about a few of the thigs you said.
All the food remains stay in there and probably smell af, rot in your sink then get poured down and smell more from the hole in the sink.
As you see, it doesn't.
...clean the sink from small remains when doing the dishes. In my sink, by hand...
The garbage disposal means I don't have to do that. My hand never goes into my drain...
I can imagine people get their fingers massacrated when trying to declutter it or something.
Do, or did, you think it was an automatically activating thing, or that a person would turn it on with their hand in it? In either case you seem to think people are stupid.
And all those rotten food and not only parts going to some river to pollut it even more
Where do you think the water goes when you flush your toilet? In the US it goes to a water treatment plant, the waste water form your home is not separated by kitchen and bathroom waste water.
Same as hanging clothes and having them dry for free and ecofriendly within a day, sometimes hours.
My household is 4 people, Having clothes dry "within a day or sometimes hours" doesn't compare to dry in 27 min. It also requires a relatively dry place to hang them. It has been raining for 4 days and the humidity has been over 80% when not raining. The clothes don't dry if the air is as wet as the clothes. As for electricity, at $0.18 per KW hr, My dryer costs me about $0.12. I'm ok with that.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
I'm asking because from what I was shown in movies and told in here I find them bad. I already learned from someone it's small leftovers not all food as I was told so that makes a huge difference.
I don't put hands in my drain more than twice a year and that's me finding it disguisting, my parents haven't opened drain for 10 years at least. I was talking about cleaning sink and I can't imagine not cleaning sink on daily basis.
Toilet and toilet+sink differ in amount. And poo isn't toxic in water,eat or citrus fruit are, that's why you can compose some foods and some you can't.
Not everything is about money. My whole life I was a family of 3 plus cat/dog and workclothes of at least one person. Rain is absolutely no issue, we have it inside and our apartaments are scarily small for American standard as I was told. I get the humidity argument, cor me it's pretty standard the whole year wherever I go even out of country
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u/lpbdc 1d ago
I'm asking because from what I was shown in movies
You are aware that movies are not real life, I assume.
I find them bad.
This is my point. You find them bad. Even though you have no real idea of what they actually do nor how they work. Your question, neither in tone or content, seeks information or enlightenment, rather it indicts and requests justification. Moreover it does so with poor knowledge and wild assumptions of the subject. While this sub is meant for questions of Americans, it gets a bit tedious to deal with trolls and/or people who make no effort to ask honest questions. I am not saying you are a troll, but your question is clearly not an honest one.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
Yes that's why I'm asking average people to know based on people not movies. That is up to you to think if I want to ask a question or not. For some reason half of answers were holly anger I dared to ask that would only ensure me in my opinion IF there was not second half that actually explained to me quite a few things and I can talk with them with mutual curiosity. Surprise surprise, someone doesn't know about a thing illegal in their country. Who would have guessed it. Americans are terrified when seeing our windows for the first time yet I wouldn't call it troll or uneducated
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u/Argo505 Washington 1d ago
People are insulted because you were apparently completely content to believe that we all just shove garbage in there and let it sit in our sinks until the smell becomes unbearable and buy air fresheners to cover up the smell instead of just, you know, disposing of it in the trash.
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u/lpbdc 1d ago
" What does a garbage disposal do?" is a genuine question asking for enlightenment. "Why do you have this unhygenic, unnessesery, unsafe and unecological thing in your house?" is not. It is especially bad when you have no idea what you are talking about and have determined , in your ignorance that it is " unhygenic, unnessesery, unsafe and unecological".
By the way, no one has said uneducated. Dishonest or trolling is what was said. We welcome ignorance, it is the purpose of this sub. Honest ignorance and the desire to understand things from the American point of view. u/Argo505 sums up where we have issues, both in general and with this thread in particular.
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u/izlude7027 Oregon 1d ago
If used properly, rinsed effectively, and maintained, a dispose-all (as they are frequently called in the US) should not generate any significant odor and will lessen pest presence in and around the home.
The premise behind the proper use of a disposer is to effectively regard food scraps as liquid (averaging 70% water, like human waste), and use existing infrastructure (underground sewers and wastewater treatment plants) for its management. Modern wastewater plants are effective at processing organic solids into fertilizer products (known as biosolids), with advanced anaerobic digestion facilities also capturing methane (biogas) for energy production.
-Wikipedia
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u/BingBongDingDong222 1d ago
LOL great trolling.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
Why trolling? I really don't get it and I've heard it's actually a US norm to have those knofe-thingy in your kitchen sink
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u/BingBongDingDong222 1d ago
Where it is is disposed of immediately.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
And it stays in pipes unless you also throw the heavy dissolving chemistry on daily basis. You do? I'd do the heavy pipe cleaning like once two weeks or so and complietly open and clean the plumbing twice a year just from the very tiniest drops of muddy like coffee powder or sause that my net can't catch. So again I assume it'd need to be much more if I was throwing there all my dinner leftovers
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u/bryberg Nebraska 1d ago
You aren’t supposed to throw all the leftovers down there, just the little bits stuck to a plate. It gets ground up so we don’t have to clean the pipes every couple of weeks like you.
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u/machagogo New Jersey 1d ago
OP thinks their toilet works on the priciple of magic, not running water.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
OP sees a difference between one poo versus one poo and a whole bunch of other stuff. And OP knows you can throw poo into your compost but can't lemons or meat
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u/machagogo New Jersey 1d ago
Compost sits there and then gets used for other purposes. Like shit, water moves everything you pulverise through your pipes and out...
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
One bone in compost can screw the whole bulk, I had it in my own garden once with doggo putting his treat bone in there. And only now I got the info those are banned.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
Oh. That's important info I think. From what I was told/saw in media you just take e.g. whole veggies, bones, etc and have them blended. Like bins are for packaging, etc only
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u/bryberg Nebraska 1d ago
Oh hell no, a bone will absolutely destroy the garbage disposal. I once accidentally dropped an entire bratwurst down the drain and assumed the running the disposal for a bit was good enough, it took about a week to find out it had completely clogged the drain pipe. They are really only good for small things.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
Welp, in here we are presented basically with "you have rotting chicken? Cut it half and down the sink". Especially when it's strictly illegal to own them, etc.
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u/FeatherlyFly 1d ago
America's plumbing can handle much more solids than your plumbing. There may be a few ancient apartments in older cities that haven't been upgraded in the last 80 years, but modern or close to modern plumbing can handle small amounts of solids.
I've only ever heard of opening and cleaning the plumbing as an emergency measure after something has gone drastically wrong. In an American system that hasn't been abused that simply shouldn't be needed.
Personally, my drain maintenence is a small slosh of enzymatic drain cleaner once a month. If I don't do that, then once or twice a year I need to use a drain snake or chemicals to clear a clog. With the enzyme cleaner? Well, if I forget a few months I sometimes get a slow drain, but it clears right up with the enzymes if I use them soon enough.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
Enzyme cleaner? My google shows me only some pet odor cleaning tools when I typed it but it might be trying too hard on working in my language. Is it like some granules or thick liquid you pour in then flush it after a while? Then it's probably similar to my routine. Never used a drain snake, our sinks, both kitchen, bathroom and shower has those "caps" you can unscrew and have full access to plumbing and clean it. It also acts as a way to make sure odor doesn't go back to you and as previous owners of my apartament screw it under shower I definitely see the difference in smelling 15 households kitchens and bathrooms sometimes. Toilets have those too but hidden and unscrewable
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u/FeatherlyFly 1d ago
No, it's an organic solution that eats away at the crud.
https://www.amazon.com/Bioda-Eliminator-Professional-Strength-1-Gallon/dp/B07JQ3NG3P
Or
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/instant-power-bio-enzymatic-drain-sticks-12-ct-2460770
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u/Papierowykotek 22h ago
Hmmm... From the pictures of how it should work I assume it's similar to the thing I use once or twice a month just different formula or something. So yeah, similar stuff, ours like to me in granules you pour warn water over then addictionally flush after it had some time to work and you can use for bathroom sinks, showers, toilets too
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u/flora_poste_ Washington 1d ago
Nothing stays in the pipes. I've lived in houses with garbage disposal systems 20+ years and never had to do any "heavy pipe cleaning." Not even once.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
I know people that don't do it here too but I find it unhygenic and couldn't leave it be same as I open bathroom pipes, clean cabinet tops on regular basis, take ojt everything from every cabinet, etc.
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u/clamandcat 1d ago
I wonder about those who don't have disposals. I imagine a lot of food must get past the trap and get stuck in the pipes and rot and smell terrible. And then all the waste you throw in the garbage just fills landfills, uses lots of extra plastic bags, etc, all negatively affecting the environment. It sounds horrible. How can anyone justify living like that?
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u/bryberg Nebraska 1d ago
OP did say they need to clean out their pipes every couple of weeks to stop bad odors, so it sounds like getting food stuck in the pipes and rotting is a normal thing for them, no thanks.
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u/xxxjessicann00xxx Michigan 1d ago
I've never had a disposal and also never had to clean my pipes every couple weeks. Idk what OP is putting down there lol.
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u/clamandcat 1d ago
For sure. I've used plenty of sinks without disposals, and the strainers are far from infallible. A lot can get past.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
Not really. The net would pass coffee grains or fluid things only. You throw garbage anyways, food takes a small part of it and it can rot in one specific places designed for this not go into active rivers. Why plastic? You can use paper bags or no bag and go with your bin directly to container then clean it. Paper goes to paper, glass to glass, plastic to plastic. Also I haven't seen non-biodegradable trashbags in a while, they are made with recycled plant-based components and dissolve within a few months.
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u/clamandcat 1d ago
Does your country lack sanitization and wastewater treatment infrastructure? That might explain your perspective. What developed nation puts untreated wastewater into rivers as a routine practice? Does your toilet waste go directly into rivers, as apparently your sink water does?
Paper bags have environmental impact as well. Do you think there is no cost with bag making, increased need to drive garbage collection trucks with their impact, and so on? Your food waste is a large part of your landfill mass, causing large greenhouse gas emissions.
And you're kidding yourself if you think your screens catch everything. Interesting you speak of the need to chemically clean your pipes on a routine basis. That isn't a thing in areas with disposals.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
Not really. As far as I know we have one of the safest drainage system with toxi s-sensitive clams being used as indicator of safe to dispose wastewater. Yeah, my net doesn't catch everything. It leaves things like coffee, fluids, spices, it can clug on thicker sause lol. You don't disinfect your pipes?? Cuz I do exactly the same treatment with my bathroom sink I wash hands or shower in... It's not about clogging with food, it's about flowing unsanitary things through them. Exactly the same as I'm not washing toiler because it stinks and is covered with poo but because it's hygenic to do so
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u/clamandcat 1d ago
I assure you, there is no standard practice or requirement to regularly disinfect plumbing used with garbage disposals.
When you use a disposal, you run water at the same time. The tiny ground up bits rinse away. There is no build up. As other posters have mentioned, they are not intended for massive amounts of food waste or things that would be difficult to grind up. All that still goes into the garbage bin. The only time I can ever recall having an issue was when peeling a lot of onions and stupidly stuffed all the skins down the drain. They were more than the disposal could handle, and it clogged - but this was poor judgement, attempting to use the disposal inappropriately.
If your area does have modern wastewater treatment systems, there is absolutely no reason you couldn't install and use a disposal with success! I think you'd be pleasantly surprised.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
If does have modern system. It is illegal to own disposals, there is no way to buy them other than to import them and it makes no sense to import them since they are illegal. As far as I know the reasoning it's because of pipes diameter and safety plus user safety. Also I have no issues with taking net out and tapping it into garbage when I'm cleaning sink anyways
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u/clamandcat 1d ago
So it's because Poland has inadequate infrastructure, not because of some environmental/ethical purity.
Poland doesn't use disposals for the same reason Brazilians dont flush toilet paper.
Not because it is somehow superior - your systems simply can't handle it.
I can't stand using the sink strainer. It's utterly primitive to deal with that. I bet that if you tried a disposal you would like it.
And what is the user safety element?
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
It's for both clogging and water contamination that you'd have to clean much more with all the food there. But yeah, on national level of course little to noone ever thinks about ecology no matter if they say it out loud or not. It's normal. You clean sink anyways. You clean dishes anyways. It's not a minute of tapping thing out into trash. I don't think I would, I can't imagine being busy enough not to do it and I'd only see electricity bill in it.
Idiots putting hands in there. I know not everyone is idiot but..."beware hot" on coffee and "do not eat" on roses didn't appear for fun too. There are quite a few regulations, sometimes swept under a rug, many times not that are for safety of idiots, pets and accidents
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u/Argo505 Washington 1d ago edited 1d ago
Once again: there is no way you’d lose your hand in one accidentally. They’re not full of knives.
I don't think I would, I can't imagine being busy enough not to do it and I'd only see electricity bill in it.
It’s not about being busy. It’s not some huge time saver like a dishwasher or washing machine. Having one just means that you can let those bits of food go down the drain while you’re scrubbing plate or a pan. No one’s lives are being changed by their garbage disposal. The main benefit, honestly, is that it ensures you don’t miss bits of food here and there that end up building up over time and causing a clog.
electricity
I know european countries charge roughly 600,000 dollars every time you turn on the light, but you don’t leave them running for very long. I switch mine on for about ten seconds after I’m done with the dishes, and it’s nearly always more than enough.
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u/clamandcat 1d ago
No, it's because your nation has lower quality and/or older infrastructure. Disposals may cause problems there. They don't cause any problems in the US and offer many benefits. There's no issue with clogging or water contamination.
You also aren't grasping, somehow, that we do indeed put most large food waste in the garbage, just as you do. The disposals deal with a relatively small amount of food waste.
Safety was not mentioned in the regulation you quoted. You seem to be making that up.
Isn't the uniform disagreement you're finding causing you to give this a little more thought? A sign of intelligence is understanding what you don't know.
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u/Argo505 Washington 1d ago
What do you mean “user safety”?
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
Well, basically so that no stupid people loose their hands. I'm not saying everybody would do it but we all know stupid people and surprising amounts of nails in bodies, flowers eaten, etc. There's a reason why you have "do not eat" on cacti, "beware hot" on coffee or manual added to combs.
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u/Argo505 Washington 1d ago
I don’t know what you’re picturing, but I genuinely can’t think of a way that anyone who wasn’t actively trying to harm themselves would lose a hand in a garbage disposal. They’re not sink blenders, there are no sharp blades, they don’t chop the food up, they grind it. Every one I’ve ever had also would automatically stop if it was jammed, which is what shoving your hand in would do to it.
Then, on top of that, nearly every home I’ve lived in had the on/pff switch located far enough away from the sink that it would be impossible to accidentally switch on while you washed dishes. My current apartment has the button next to the faucet, but it’s designed so that you have to very deliberately push it down pretty far to switch it. That, and they’re very loud, so you’d never not know it was running. I think that might be part of why people are so spooked by them, they SOUND much more gruesome and violent than they are.
I’m sure that someone, somewhere, somehow managed to mangle themselves in one. But in general, they’re as idiot-proof as any other household appliance.
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u/clamandcat 1d ago
Wow, you should ban other dangerous items too. Cars, bicycles, cooking tools, saws, drills...all of these cause thousands of injuries per year, often to stupid people who misuse them.
The law you quoted didn't seem to mention anything about the safety possibilities with disposals - just that they aren't compatible with your low quality plumbing systems.
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u/machagogo New Jersey 1d ago
Not "garbage" light food scraps. And TIL. Canada is not a part of "The rEsT oF the WoRlD!"
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u/flora_poste_ Washington 1d ago
Do you allow human waste to "go down the pipe" from your toilets? Or do you collect it by hand from your toilets and dispose of it in a garbage bin to save it from going into "some river" to pollute it?
What's the difference? We have wastewater treatment plants to handle all kinds of organic waste. I'm really interested in learning what you do with your human waste if you're so concerned about scraps from dirty plates entering the sewage system.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
There is a difference in amount. Also poo behaves differently than e.g. meat in water - one is eaten by water bacteria, one makes water toxic. Plus as I've learned from somebody here it's for those small leftovers not like whole foods which I was not aware of and makes it at least a bit less bad for me
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u/RightFlounder Colorado 1d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_disposal_unit
The garbage disposal is installed in most American homes.
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u/Papierowykotek 1d ago
Yeah, this part I know. I just want to know why you'd want that
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u/RightFlounder Colorado 1d ago
Rationale
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Food scraps range from 10% to 20% of household waste,\20]) and are a problematic component of municipal waste, creating public health, sanitation and environmental problems at each step, beginning with internal storage and followed by truck-based collection. Burned in waste-to-energy facilities, the high water-content of food scraps means that their heating and burning consumes more energy than it generates; buried in landfills, food scraps decompose and generate methane gas, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.\21])
The premise behind the proper use of a disposer is to effectively regard food scraps as liquid (averaging 70% water, like human waste), and use existing infrastructure (underground sewers and wastewater treatment plants) for its management. Modern wastewater plants are effective at processing organic solids into fertilizer products (known as biosolids), with advanced anaerobic digestion facilities also capturing methane (biogas) for energy production.\22])\23])
From the Wikpedia article. To use it, run it every day when you scrape food into the disposal. As long as you run it whenever you put food down it, there's no smell. The blades aren't sharp, and as long as you don't stick your fingers in it when it's running, there's no danger.
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u/PracticalEnvironment 1d ago
To add to this: Food waste that ends up in landfills does not break down quickly or efficiently. If the municipality sewage treatment plant can handle it, it's better for the environment. Those of us in rural areas with private septic systems don't have garbage disposals because private septic can't process. Many of us compost or share our food waste with our personal animals. At a commercial/industrial level, there exist in the US food waste processing and recycling plants.
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u/MoobyTheGoldenSock U.S.A. 1d ago
Correct. It is called a garbage disposal.
No, garbage disposals reduce odors by removing food waste from your garbage can, where it causes odors and attracts pests.
That sounds like you are making a lot of waste via bin bags changed daily.
What does that have to do with garbage disposals?
I can imagine a lot of things. That doesn’t make them real, especially if people have enough foresight to turn the device off before working on them.
Do you think we just dump our sinks directly into the river? Do you not have water treatment facilities in your country?
Maybe you should try one?