Also, plumber told me, new dishwashers use way less water than hand washing dishes. They are energy efficient and sanitizing at the same time. Just be sure to run when there is a full load.

I have never, I mean never had a garbage disposal problem---I have lived in at least 20 different residences over the years--!( I am 70)-all with GD--Common sense goes along way in determining what and what not to put in it. I have always put egg shells, coffee grinds, potato peels, no grease, no stems of lettuce, celery-etc.-Just use your head folks--Have a nice day!!!

I couldn't live without a garbage disposal. For those of you who have problems with them, may I respectfully suggest it is operator error. Water MUST be running whenever the disposal is running and should continue to run for 15-30 seconds after you turn it off. When turning on the disposal, it should run continuously, NOT pulsed like a food processor.

I've seen people scrape food from multiple plates down the drain, and then turn on the disposal. By that time it's too late. The food chunks have gone down the drain and are starting to clog your pipes.

Go to the link below for an interesting article about disposals, etc. They are greener than you think.

https://ecomyths.org/2014/08/25/sink-disposals-vs-trashcans/

Thank you slink1727 for the information. And you are quite correct in that the science of solid waste, both through landfilling and other means of collection, has advanced such that methane gasses and other by-product are recycled and reused. What should stay in the conversation on the disposal is that it is a tool, and a useful tool. It doesn't have to be used, it can be used if needed, or it can be used jolly well all the time. Each family will have different needs. Use of the disposal doesn't have to be turned into a policy argument and its use regulated by the government. Composting is not always an option. Frankly, I have rental property and I have disposals in my units. My tenants are students from a nearby university and I dread to think of the plumbing problems I would have if the disposals were not installed. You simply would not believe the things I pull out of the dishwashers: broken glasses, pens, you name it. Ah-h-h, back to the disposal question... I personally did not have one until I was on in years. OK, not completely true, we had one in the house I grew up in, I meant once I was out on my own. Of course I got along fine without one, but I prefer having one now in that small particles of food that don't make it to the waste bin will be on its way instead of clogging my drains. And by the way, I know what sewer gas smells like, and I have never experienced that aroma around a disposal. Someone's unit may have been improperly installed.

I had one growing up, regretted not having one for the next 20 years, and when I finally bought a house with one installed I decided I couldn't stand it. It's much more trouble than using a simple strainer in the sink. I haven't used it in over 5 years.

growing up in the US, we always had a disposal with no trouble... I had even been told that it is good to have one with a septic system since food waste helped balance the pH of bathroom waste (although I have no idea if that is true). I've since lived in Europe for 17 years and have really missed having one! now that I have bought a house, I had one installed and I am really happy with it. I don't put much down it (we have curbside organic waste pick-up), but it makes cleanup MUCH easier.

What on Earth are you people putting down the disposal??? That is something I have never understood.

Just toss the food from your left over plate in the trash can, or compost, and then you don't need a disposal. Disposals always trap gunk, they stink, and they break to cause added expense. I can't stand them.

I grew up in a house without one, and we simply had drain strainers in the sink to make sure nothing big goes down to damage the pipes.

I now have a house with a disposal, and I am ripping it out ASAP to install a simple drain that will never break, stink, or encourage me to toss food down the drain (literally).

I removed mine and use a simple strainer in the sink. Saves me money and I have more room under the sink too.

I love how ling this thread has been going. I lived for years without one and now I have one and cannot stand it, it gets gross and smelly and I put food scraps in compost anyway. When we redo the kitchen I will not put one in.

My chickens would starve to death if I had one!

There are a couple of things that need to be said that might contradict some people. First is that putting food in a garbage disposal and grinding it does not cause the release of methane. Decomposing food causes the release of methane, aka landfills. So if you don't compost, you are actually contributing to the harm of the environment by sending your food over to landfills where methane and other things are released and get absorbed into the soil. Second is that is is ecological via last point mentioned. Best method is composting what you can and sending proper things down the garbage disposal. The rest is just specifics and I am sure some other people will be glad to point it out. Not quite sure why they were illegal in NYC so I would have to look into that!

We currently have an over-mount 2-bowl sink where one side has a garbage disposal. We don't really use it that often, but do from time to time since its there (installed it 11 years ago).

We are now updating our kitchen and looking at a large 1-bowl under-mount sink which will be a couple inches deeper and considering not installing a garbage disposal this time since there will be only 1 drain. Strainer basket of course will be present to catch any scraps. Is this a bad call though to forego the disposal? Thanks!

@stuntman19741974, we have the same dilemma except that we've never had a garbage disposal. My husband grew up with one, though, and after almost 40years of marriage still doesn't know that he needs to scrape his plate before he put it in the sink.

@stuntman19741974 - we installed a large deep sink, with garbage disposal (in Europe where they are almost never used... but i grew up with one and missed it terribly!). The configuration works okay... my regret is the single sink. after living in a house with a small single sink, i was fixated on installing a large one in our new kitchen in order to make washing pots easier. but i now wish i'd installed a double sink (one side larger than the other).

I'm on my 2nd garbage disposal. The first one lasted almost 20 years. I use it all day, EVERYDAY! When my first one bit the dust, I went out the same day and purchased a new one. Now, the dishwasher, I never use! I have to remind myself to run it a couple times a year to keep it operative, as if it matters.

The house we have lived in the last few years has one. The house we are building definitely won’t.

Maybe it is what you are used to (never had one until I was in my 30s) but to me it is more trouble than it is worth in terms of smells and cleaning. Honestly it sort of grosses me out. I never had any issues with the plumbing in homes I did not have one so I guess I don’t find the benefit there either. I just don’t put food down the sink, and use a strainer to catch any bits. Just like I grew up doing.

Unlike last poster though, I must have a dishwasher. Lived without one of those for a while and never again!

Thanks. I didn't mention, we do have a dishwasher and use it for 99.9% of everything we wash. If anything, items that are soaked and partially hand washed in the sink are in the non-disposal side which has a strainer in the drain that we just dump in the garbage if there's a few bits that collect in there.

Sounds like I may be leaning towards installing the next single-bowl sink without a disposal. Worst-case, we can always add one if needed.

We're in the middle of a kitchen renovation and just had the garbage disposal installed as part of the update. Now with the added machine under the sink, the plumbing has to be redone because of the negative drain off. I've never had a garbage disposal and have lived happily without it. Now I'm in a quandry. Keep it and redo the plumbing in our basement ($$$). Hadn't expected that! Or just remove the machine and do what we've always done...use a mesh drain cover. First world problems!!

I have a garbage disposal but rarely run it and, when I do, it's just to clean out small amounts of food that escape down the drain. I always scrape food off dishes before putting in sink, but I don't get 100%.

Nevertheless, I still wanted a garbage disposal installed in our kitchen because I grew up in a home without a disposal and hated constantly cleaning out the strainer that collected the little bits of food that escaped into the sink.

A garbage disposal had been the single largest source of kitchen conflict between my wife and me. From food scraps sitting and rotting for days when I'd be out of town, to things put down it that shouldn't have been (yes, it was me who put that down and ended up costing $450 for a plumber two days before selling the last house).

So in the 'new' house, we lived with the kitchen for a few months to see how it flowed, and what we liked and didn't like. It had no disposal.

So a few months ago, while picking out a new sink, etc., I was pricing a disposal, along with working out the electrical solution. I realized that I didn't miss having a disposal. And I also didn't miss having to stick my hand down a dirty disposal to pull out yet more broccoli stalks that not only won't mulch, but make a horrific noise.

I am now firmly in the no disposal camp, as is my wife. And marital kitchen harmony has returned.

Having a garbage disposal requires some common sense, as well as reading the manual. If you do that, you won't have the issues stated in the above post. It gets rid of food waste easily so your garbage can doesn't stink by the time it's trash day. I couldn't live without it. But if I had a rental unit, I wouldn't install one, because I've seen how my friends, who don't have a disposal at home, misuse the one at the vacation home.

@DiggingInTheDirt, Did you really just suggest that my wife and I lack common sense?

I am a fan of home improvement shows, flipping houses shows and the like but must agree with those who have posted that on many of these programs we see no effort to re-purpose items that actually have value and use. I try to go green as much as possible. I added a garbage disposal for the very small stuff in hopes to flush it through my system. However, I sack other "garbage" in airtight bags, according to my garbage service company because we do not have the option to compost. These TV programs no doubt get sponsorship and therefore promote a wide variety of gadgetry for that reason but my goodness! I am mortified to see them go into homes and sledge hammer perfectly good cabinetry, break out windows,disposals, various hardware, tubs, etc. In our first home, my relatives gave us everything out of the kitchen and bathrooms in their very expensive home when they remodeled. I had no idea you could reuse a disposal that was already 10 years old but I got fifteen more years out of it! (I was given the original manufacture instructions which we were careful to follow).

I realize on these renovation programs they are working on a time line but when they have crews on the job and it isn't a one man demo, things like this could be removed in a way that they could be reused and it would not take that much more time. There are literally hundreds of people who dream of updating a kitchen or bathroom and can't afford it and they would be thrilled with what these people are throwing away. Every time I see this I think shame on them. We just updated the kitchen. We removed my old counter top which a small part of it we cut off and discarded and the other part made a nice counter in the garage which has proven to be very useful. We carefully placed all nails and screws in plastic jars. One for the saves and one for the discards so nothing in the street after garbage day. The cabinets definitely required two people to remove but they came off easily and we taped each one to hold it together. Tape residue is easily removed. We offered them free to anyone who would come to get them and had many calls. The young family that took them could not stop thanking us. I am surprised the sponsors of these home improvement shows are not more proactive in salvaging things that could be really helpful to someone who can't afford a big reno. As they say, one person's trash is another person's treasure. My comments stray from the disposal issue but seemed a good opportunity to point out useless demo of things that could be reused.

Currently, in my neighborhood, I hear plumbers and remodel contractors say no to disposals and to go green. There are many people in my area who say they are not using them. We are constantly reminded to conserve water and to recycle and more and more of my friends say they are not using theirs other than randomly and will not replace them when they give out. We installed a large sink and it is not a divided sink so only one drain hole. I keep a removable strainer over the hole primarily to keep non food objects from going down the drain and try to combine the use of the disposal with "going green".

I fix everything myself and never watch those shows. I wouldn't want a disposal even if it were free and lasted 100 years. I have way more space under the sink and no maintenance issues.

Always had one and always will. Never had a problem. About the only thing I don't put down it is egg shells.

Once I learned how to use one appropriately, I never had any problems.Fibrous vegetable scraps and copious amounts of peels don't go down my drain nor do I pour down huge amounts of grease that accumulate if I roast a chicken.

In fact it is more of an issue of clogging without a disposal because I don't like washing the scraps and other small debris down a NON-garbage disposal drain.

Garbage disposals are banned in many more environmentally-conscientious countries .
I think our stress and busy-ness in this country makes most of us focused on efficiency. I too love the efficiency and speed of using a garbage disposal but again , have chosen not to have one for both space and awareness that despite careful use, they often cause problems, need replaced more than most other appliances, and the advice of the contractor friend who initiated most of the geo-thermal heating systems long ago as a CMU engineering grad, and was hired to do solar and geothermal heating by a huge firm in Boston after his work as a Vista volunteer in Appalachia, where he initiated these solar/ geothermal housing systems.
For me , his concerns and the lead of other countries overrode my desire for efficiency.

following....

I have not had a garbage disposal on years. That rubber stuff seems kind of nasty and scary. I do have a compost bin though...

This was excellent to read! Sealed the deal on not having a GD in my new house. I was worried about it cracking my farmhouse sink, but there are dozens more reasons to not have one. Ive always hated thinking about all the nasty gunk lerking in that drain. I like things that I can clean, and that is one place that really cant be cleaned! Neither my husband or myself hardly use it, so I wont miss it. thanks for this post!

I haven't had one for years. If it is already in place, use it and keep it disinfected, but do NOT put potato peels down it EVER (ask me how I know). You also should not have one if you are on septic.

No disposal in new house. Neighbors think I'm crazy. Not very hard to scrape plates into garbage and take garbage bag to outside trash daily. No special rules about what to put into garbage bag. How about apple peelings? So no to potato and yes to apple? More trouble than it's worth.

Thanks for a great read. Learned from my wife of what not to put down the GD and instead of trying to remember, I just don't put anything down the GD. Using a metal strainer is so much better and is easy to clean. With this new learned method we will not be putting in a GD when we change our kitchen sink, mostly because our new sink is deeper and will take up more valuable space underneath.

I've been in my new house for over a year now, and do not miss the GD one bit! My builder tried numerous times to talk me into it, but I stood my ground. Everything goes into the compost bin anyway. The drain is always clean, no clogs, no disposal smell. It's just so nice to finally have a kitchen without that nasty contraption!!!

This must be an American thing, I only know what they are cos of movies and googling it just now. Put food in the bin not down the drain and have something to catch any scraps in the sink hole. To me this seems like inventing something to fix a problem that never existed (NASA making a fancy space pen and russians using a pencil).

@Elena Aye, space pens might seem like a frivolous invention, but in the US, at least, scientific documents, which NASA flight documents are, are always recorded in pen. If an error was made, then the error was stuck-through, but not erased. (This was true in the paper document era and still holds if paper is used.) Pencil is too easily erased.

I'm watching a documentary about Apollo 11 at the moment. I feel so lucky that I was around to witness the space age.

Not relevant enough....

I have a Title 5 septic and garbage disposals are not allowed. I know a few people who have had one installed, but they have the system pumped every year, instead of every two years. Should they sell, the disposal has to be removed before the house is listed.

Over the years, I have learned to live without one. What with all the recycle regulations, it is just another step to take before going to the dump. And, a disposal is just one more thing to clean….otherwise, stinky, winky.

I have now lived in my home for one and a half years, and I do not miss having a garbage disposal. I am so happy I don't have that stinky, germy, impossible to clean invention in my home. Absolutely no need for it!

Sewer water around here is treated & pumped into the sea. So food scraps going down the drain become part of what needs to be treated, for which there is only so much capacity. Nutrients washed from land to sea by rain runoff is of course a necessary part of ocean ecosystems. But too much extra, i.e. from urban waste, creates problems (like, acts as fertilizer causing algae overgrowth causing oxygen depletion causing fish suffocation). So that is a good enough reason not to put food down the drain here. I'm remodeling a kitchen in a house now which will be sold and have decided against putting in a garburator, yet did place an outlet under the sink for future install as a compromise.

I’ve never had one. So I don’t know if I have been missing something that is good or bad. I’ve never heard anyone post about if they did or did not include a garbage disposal in their kitchen renovation. A few years ago I had my kitchen redone and my very experienced and wonderful kitchen designer never brought up the issue of a garbage disposal. I also don’t like the idea of ground up garbage going down my drain: yuk!
I do like my “Simplehuman” garbage can that I have had for years; no issues.

I found this post as we’re considering removing our GD when we re-do our small kitchen, and gain some of that space back. We run our GD maybe every 2-3 weeks when something large accidentally gets in there or if it starts to stink, but otherwise we don’t use it. I have two rental properties with GDs and get calls almost annually that they’re broken. I’ve replaced 3 in the last 10 years but had to troubleshoot half a dozen times. I find tenants put everything they can down the drains, and motors have been burned up by chicken bones and shrimp shells. One of those is a highrise condo where every unit has a GD. Several times per year there are kitchen sink backups, caused by food going down the drain in combo with grease.

One should NEVER allow ANYTHING to go down the drain. No, lemons won’t freshen it up, they’ll just stay there and get smelly. Eggshells won’t sharpen the teeth, neither will ice. Sinks that don’t have a GD also don’t have a giant drain hole, they have a small drain that blocks large chunks of food. If you scrape your food in the trash or compost, there won’t be anything to get caught in the strainer.

If we had the room, I’d keep it for houseguests with bad habits and for resale value, but I would still never use it. I have a friend who had to get the top of the line model that vaporizes chicken bones. I don’t understand why you’d rather do this than just toss it in the trash.

We have a small 3 gallon bin that still takes 1-2 days to fill up so it never smells. We tie the bags closed before we throw them out. Our trash is picked up weekly, and our can sits right outside the kitchen under the window, we never have smell problems. I do, however, sometimes clean the inside of the disposal and its nasty black slime all around the underside of the collar, stinky slimy flange, just disgusting. Looking forward to never doing yhat again. We would rather have better habits than gadgets that enable and sometimes encourage bad ones.

What an interesting thread. I've had garbage disposals in the past and used them but I have gotten away from the in the past dozen years. In my last rental home, shortly after I moved in, I was opening a small can of cat food when apparently unnoticed I dropped the pull-back lid in it and later turned it on. Of course it broke it and it cost me $75 for the landlord to fix it. After that I really stopped using it.

In my home I bought in December 2020, I have one but I am not sure it even works. There is a switch by the sink and I've tried it with no results so it probably is a dead disposal. It doesn't matter; I simply scrape everything in to the garbage bin. Don't miss it at all.

I like disposals and have always have them installed if my sink didn’t have one. I use Plink every so often to keep it extra clean.

When my apartment building decided to not replace the garbage disposal, I thought they were nuts and I was a bit pissed. Then I realized it was a great call. We have a garbage chute that goes downstairs into a dumpster so I don't have to worry about dumping food in a garbage can and letting it sit there in my place. I couldn't care less about the stinky dumpster downstairs. I also recently had an ongoing problem with those little fly gnats. I caught them coming out of the garbage disposal. They were disgusting and I later found that they love breeding in the corners of the garbage disposal. I'm sorry but that's as nasty as hell. I even thought I did a good job of keeping it clean and then started buying gnat killer that was specifically made for garbage disposal. That was all fine and it worked but just the thought of those nasty little buggers making a home in my garbage disposal on occasion nearly made me puke. It is so much nicer now to scrape the excess played garbage into a plastic bag, walk outside my door 10 feet and toss it down the garbage disposal and come back to a relatively fresh and never stinking sink. Brilliant.

Garbage disposal is really an American problem. Should it be a priority? It doesn’t exist in far more advanced parts of the world. Here in the US, almost every person wants a garbage disposal, but we can barely get our government to make sure there is funding for basic necessities such as fighting the opioid crisis, funding public transit and affordable healthcare ( but sending $3,800,000,000 US taxpayer money annually to Israel to continue to illegally colonize Palestinian territories and continue their apartheid and ethnic cleansing, no problem… we got money).

Many cities in the US such as Boston and Cambridge have composting programs, with free weekly pickup on trash collection day. They also provide a free bin for indoor and another larger for outdoor. If your city or town doesn’t provide it, please consider contacting them to see if they can start a program.
-Half of the food waste you can’t put in your disposal anyway because it will ruin the disposal: bones, rice, pasta….

• Surprisingly, the compost bin can sit in the house all week with no smell and no flies… I feel good knowing that it gets recycled into fertilizers and my garbage doesn’t stink and leak.
  -The strain in the sink works, and you can flush a tiny amount of food down the drain with no problem.
  -You can also freeze scrap food and put in the trash on trash day.

I took out my garbage disposal because I got tired of the slimy biofilm and couldn't stop it. I was changing sinks anyway. Since I always had a disposal I didn't even know if it would help, but it did. It takes a little more effort to throw things away but not that much. Haven't seen any biofilm lately and the sinks stay cleaner because I don't rely on them as waste receptacles.

As a kitchen designer it is hard for me to convince my clients to delete it. I just remodeled my own kitchen for the second time (two different homes) I chose to go without. I just don't see the point. Small food bits can go down the drain just like they can after being chewed up.

You could go with a composter instead - whether electric (such as Lomi), or a counter compost bin and outdoor compost pile.