How to Kill Your Garbage Disposal: How to Be Sure You’ll Need a Garbage Disposal Replacement Soon

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Garbage Disposal Replacement is the New Fun Way to Spend on Plumbing Repairs

1. Pour Your Coffee Grounds Down the Kitchen Sink: The more, the better! Those little granules love to accumulate and cause blockages that will have you calling for a garbage disposal replacement in no time.
2. Don’t Run Water When Using Your Garbage Disposal: Who needs water, right? Just flip the switch and let those food scraps grind away. Without water, you can expect your disposal to clog and jam up quickly.
3. Drain Your Cooking Fat Down the Kitchen Sink: Hot grease will solidify nicely in your pipes, leading to some impressive clogs. This is a guaranteed way to clog not just your garbage disposal, but your entire plumbing system.
4. Send Down a Hearty Serving of Rice or Pasta: Just pour those carbs right into the disposal. They’ll expand, turn into sludge, and create a mess that only a garbage disposal replacement can solve.
5. Drop Some Eggshells and Bones in There: Forget the trash can—your disposal can handle it, right? Well, not for long. The tough, non-biodegradable materials will wreak havoc on your disposal’s blades, making replacement inevitable.

If you’d rather avoid a garbage disposal upgrade, read on for tips to keep your current disposal healthy and happy.

What Should You Avoid Putting Down Your Garbage Disposal?

In a word: everything.

While your garbage disposal might seem like a convenient solution for getting rid of food waste, the truth is that it’s not meant to be a substitute for your trash can. For your garbage disposal to have a long and trouble-free life (and to delay that garbage disposal replacement), it needs to be fed sparingly and treated with care. Yes, garbage disposals can chop up large pieces of food and debris into smaller bits that fit down the drain, but just because they can doesn’t mean they should. Food scraps belong in the garbage, and plates should be scraped thoroughly before rinsing. Even if your garbage disposal can handle food scraps, there’s no reason to add this waste to the water supply. Relying on your garbage disposal as a trash can is a surefire way to put unnecessary strain on both the disposal and your local water system.

Fats, Oils, and Grease (FOG)

One of the most important pieces of advice for keeping your garbage disposal healthy is to avoid pouring fats, oils, or grease (FOG) down the drain. These substances might seem harmless in their liquid state, but they solidify as they cool, leading to serious blockages in your pipes. Rinsing pots and pans with FOG residue or draining grease from cooked meat into the sink can quickly clog your garbage disposal—or worse, your kitchen or main drain line, leading to an expensive garbage disposal replacement.

Instead, drain hot grease into a separate container. Be cautious to ensure the grease isn’t too hot and that the container can safely hold hot liquids. Some people keep grease on hand for future cooking, while others prefer to discard it. For grease that has cooled, wiping the pan down with a disposable paper towel before washing is an easy way to remove excess grease.

The Carbohydrate Culprits

It might surprise you to learn that rice and pasta are also notorious garbage disposal killers. These foods, when exposed to water, swell and turn into a thick sludge that can clog your disposal and drain pipes. Over time, this sludge can slow down the flow of your drains, allowing more buildup to accumulate and leading to the need for a garbage disposal replacement.

We’ve encountered many instances where garbage disposals where homeowners poured rice or pasta down the drain and subsecuently packed it full of sludge. It only takes one large dump of rice or pasta to clog a garbage disposal, but even smaller amounts sent down the drain regularly can cause problems over time.

Grounds for Garbage

Coffee grounds are another common enemy of your garbage disposal. Despite their small size, coffee grounds do not break down in water. Instead, they build up in your disposal and pipes, causing friction that reduces the flow of your drain lines. Over time, this buildup can dull the blades in your garbage disposal and lead to costly repairs or even a full garbage disposal replacement.

The Impact of Non-Biodegradable Waste on Wastewater Treatment

Putting non-biodegradable waste like bones, eggshells, and coffee grounds down your garbage disposal doesn’t just harm your pipes—it also puts a significant strain on local wastewater treatment facilities. Unlike biodegradable waste, which can break down naturally over time, non-biodegradable materials remain intact, accumulating in the system and requiring additional energy and resources to manage. Bones and eggshells are particularly problematic because they don’t dissolve and can cause blockages in the pipes that lead to wastewater treatment plants. These blockages can increase maintenance costs and even result in sewer backups, which are not only expensive to fix but can also pose environmental and public health risks.

Coffee grounds, despite their small size, can also wreak havoc on wastewater treatment systems. As they accumulate in the pipes and the treatment facilities, they reduce the efficiency of the water flow and increase the workload on the filtration systems. This added strain can lead to higher operational costs, which are often passed on to consumers in the form of increased water and sewer bills. By keeping non-biodegradable waste out of your garbage disposal, you’re not only protecting your home plumbing but also contributing to the overall health and efficiency of your local wastewater treatment infrastructure—and avoiding a premature garbage disposal replacement.

Understanding Garbage Disposal Horsepower

When it comes to replacing a garbage disposal, horsepower matters—but more isn’t always better. The standard garbage disposal that we provide and install on our trucks is a 1/2 horsepower (HP) model. This level of power is more than sufficient for most households, providing reliable performance at a reasonable cost. While it’s true that there are higher-powered models available, such as 3/4 HP and even 1 HP disposals, these are typically overkill for the average kitchen and come with a significantly higher price tag, not to mention they might not delay a garbage disposal replacement any more than a properly used 1/2 HP model.

A 1/2 HP garbage disposal is designed to handle the typical food waste that most households produce. It’s powerful enough to grind up common kitchen scraps while being energy-efficient and cost-effective. For most homeowners, upgrading to a 3/4 or 1 HP model isn’t necessary unless they frequently dispose of larger quantities of tough waste, like fibrous vegetables or small bones. By choosing a 1/2 HP disposal, you get a perfect balance of power, efficiency, and affordability, making it the ideal choice for everyday use and helping you avoid an unnecessary garbage disposal replacement.

The Right Way to Use Your Garbage Disposal

So, why even have a garbage disposal if it seems like everything is bad for it? The key is moderation and proper use. Your garbage disposal should only be used when absolutely necessary and should be kept on a strict diet—no fats, carbs, or coffee grounds. Instead, all food scraps should be tossed into the garbage. Only feed the garbage disposal what you have to, keeping in mind that proper usage can help you avoid an untimely garbage disposal replacement.

When cleaning dishes, always start by scraping as much food as possible directly into the trash. Many dishwasher brands and detergent manufacturers encourage people to skip the pre-rinse before loading the dishwasher, which your garbage disposal will appreciate.

Keep Things Hot

If you do prefer to pre-rinse or if you’re washing dishes by hand, hot water is your friend. You may have heard that cold water is recommended because it makes it easier for the garbage disposal to break down fats or prevents the disposal from overheating. However, since we’ve already established that fats don’t belong in the sink, and we’re not disposing of large quantities of food scraps, hot water is the better choice.

At a minimum, run hot water for about a minute after washing dishes or loading the dishwasher to help flush your garbage disposal and drain lines. It’s also a good idea to periodically fill your kitchen sink with hot water, then unplug it and run the disposal as it drains to further flush and clean your sink’s drain lines.

Keep your current disposal running great with these simple tips, and you’ll be able to avoid a garbage disposal replacement for years! When you are ready for a new one, or if you need help with a little garbage disposal repair, our experienced and friendly plumbers at Aaron Services are ready to help!