Besides baby yaks, of course. I’ve never had a disposal so I don’t understand the need. I grew up in a house with old clay pipes that tree roots liked to crawl into for a drink so the pipes were generally always on their way to being clogged. I watched dad with the roto rooter machine a few times and was taught that nothing goes down the drain but water. For the past 28 years our house had a septic system so nothing went down but water, dishes have always been scraped into the trash.

Our new to us house has a disposal, a non working builder grade Moen. It was brought up on initial inspection, I wasn’t here for final inspection but our realtor said they fixed it. I tried it when we got here and it sounded horrible so they might have made it spin but it certainly wasn’t fixed. A week ago my wife asked me how to use it and I showed her the switch but it was frozen stuck again.

I guess I get to join the Waste Kang club but what can I toss down there? A few web searches tell me I shouldn’t really put much of anything in it but I have to maintain it by grinding ice once a week and putting cleaner down the drain. If I still have to use the kitchen trash why have a disposal? I can’t leave a non working thing under my sink, it’s not my nature, but is a disposal really useful or should I just replumb the drain?

It's good for egg shells and coffee grounds, in my experience. If you're cutting/trimming veggies, some of the bits and pieces can go. Fair warning, though: things with thin skin (like onions and garlic) are great for creating a clog. Don't try to run that stuff down the "electric pig."

I wouldn't put fatty meat scraps down one, either.

We put almost nothing down our disposal - there is a screen over the drain that gets emptied periodically in the trash. After that the screen sometimes gets placed in the dishwasher to get sanitized.

We ensure any fat in pots and pans are wiped out first before being cleaned.

Coffee grounds plugged our pipes up. Nothing but soft scraps. Plumbers invented GDs as an income stream.

mix those coffee grounds with cooked rice for a fantastic experience...

I never do the ice thing with the disposal. I do use little lemon scented pellets every month or so. As far as restrictions go, I avoid rice and potato skins. Everything else goes down easy. Most disposals get "stuck" from time to time. Quite a few have a hex nut on the bottom that can be turned with an Allen wrench to free up. Those that don't can usually be freed with something like a broomstick, using it to push the rotation a time or two, then turning on the switch (with the broomstick removed.) My disposal is 22 years old and still works fine.

We have city sewage, not septic.

I don't put starchy items like potato skins or fibrous stuff like corn husks. But for the past 20 years, I've put onions, fruit seeds (ie - peach), watermelon/melon rinds, some small meat bits (that accidently break off when I rinse meat (chicken, beef, pork), and all manner of stuff. Probably even stuff that I shouldn't. Generally, if it's organic (produce) and it fits, I put it in.

There are some things I don't put but I can't make a list offhand other than the items mentioned above.

I have an InSinkErator Evolution Compact. It was a drop-in replacement to the builder special that lasted only a year (Badger?) - no plumbing rework.

ETA: I guess it's obvious but to be explicit, GD or not, I don't pour saturated oil / grease down.

Nothing…

Why? I never understood the need for them.

Why not just turn and toss whatever into the trash can?

They smell, they break, they clog lines, etc.

Buy a stainless InSinkErator PRO750 Evolution Pro 3/4 HP Garbage Disposal and put anything down it. Never had anything clog in my InSinkerator in 15 years. I do stay away from feeding it very fibrous things like corn shucks, celery, artichoke leaves, Etc. It also stays clean.

Coffee grounds down the sink is a recipe for disaster. Speaking from experience here...

Never raw carrots.

Why is that?

Water. Anything else at your own risk.

Raw carrots become tightly packed "chips" and the water gets squeezed out making a plug that requires disconnecting the pipes to remove the plug(s).

Can't snake through the areas the plug ends up.

I've never had the disposal itself clog - it's always the pipe and trap just downstream.
My wife was famous for clogging the pipe with potato peels until I finally convinced her to stop.

Not chicken skin and bones. Not.

Very specially not corn husks. Never corn husks. It beats them into ropey fibers, and stuffs them down the pipe. Takes hours to clean. Just say "no" to corn husks. Very unbueno.

Thank you all for confirming what I’ve been reading. I guess I’ll probably replace it but I’ll add in a sink strainer basket for keeping in the sink when not using the disposal.

And then there was the Thanksgiving day, ten or fifteen years ago. Turkey was in the oven, my wife decided to pass some of the waiting time by re-organizing the pantry and getting rid of some outdated stuff.

She dumped an old container of Metamucil down the drain. As soon as the water hit it, that stuff swelled up to fifty thousand times its original size and turned into thick clay that wasn't going anywhere. That was the year that I spent most of Thanksgiving day on my back under the sink with one foot sticking out.

Really depends on your drain lines.

We try not to send anything down the sink but water. Everything goes in the trash and a stainer is used to catch everything possible. Once that is done then a rinsing of plates, pans, sink etc is fine. For this home while we have always had a garbage disposal we could really get by without one but its just safer to grind any bits that might slip by.

This is a late 70’s home with cast iron under the slab and pvc to the street. The kitchen sink and laundry room come together on one end of the house and then run to the other side of the house connecting up with the two full bathroom lines which are four inch cast. The line from the kitchen and laundry room I believe are smaller.

We moved here in the mid 80’s and the smaller kitchen/laundry room line will start running slow and eventually plug itself off from pretty much low water volume use of the sink. Its just to long a run for low volumes of water to handle solids from the sink. Regardless of how you use it you have to completely power snake it every 5-10 years.

If we dumped everything down the garbage disposal it would need power snaking yearly or even sooner.

Cast iron pipe also has mild rusting internally which causes issues as well. Educating the womens of the home of not flushing tampons was a chore. They things catch on the rust and end up plugging the lines. So anything like flushable wipes are a nono as well.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:...That was the year that I spent most of Thanksgiving day on my back under the sink with one foot sticking out.

No way...