Atherton Appliance & Kitchens and BSC Culinary offer a wide variety of kitchen appliances for every modern kitchen. One of the more common appliances available is the garbage disposal, a convenience loved by many of our customers. Garbage disposals enable homeowners to dispose of food scraps without sending everything to a landfill, or composting (which is a great option, but might not be practical for all homeowners).
Garbage disposals prevent damp and oily food scraps from mixing with recyclable materials in your waste area, and eliminates the odors they can cause. And because garbage disposals are quick and convenient, they are likely to be used by everyone who works in or around the kitchen sink.
In an article titled “Garbage Disposal Use and Care,“ Sally Albright explains that not every type of scrap should be ground down in a disposal. Meat fat, for example, can be too tough for the disposal, and bones can damage the disposal’s blades. Any hard food item, in fact, including un-popped popcorn or fruit seeds, should be disposed of by other methods. Vegetable ends are OK, but remember their usefulness in the preparation for soup broth before you send them down the disposal.
To avoid damaging your garbage disposal, avoid dropping non-food items down the drain. Remove rings and other jewelry before working near the sink, and make sure that cutlery and chopsticks don’t find their way into the disposal. Not only will your cutlery end up damaged or even ruined, your garbage disposal blades can get damaged.
Another good tip is to be sure that food is completely ground in the course of running the disposal. Listen carefully after starting the water and turning on the disposal. If you can hear any items still working against the blades, the disposal has not yet completed its job. Once food scraps are completely eliminated, continue to run water through the disposal for a few seconds after you’ve shut it off, to wash food remnants down the drain.
One interesting idea is to use ice cubes as garbage disposal blade sharpeners. Simply toss a few ice cubes into the disposal and turn the blades on.
To clean your garbage disposal, run warm, soapy water through it daily after washing the dinner dishes and disposing of all food scraps. To deodorize the disposal, grind orange or lemon peels between the blades, or flush the disposal with vinegar or lemon juice. In her article, Albright suggests using a bottle cleaner (made for cleaning baby bottles) in cases where food becomes stuck on the blades or walls of the disposal.
At our showrooms, we offer garbage disposals from Franke, Insinkerator, KitchenAid, and Viking. Each company offers something special and unique. Viking’s 3/4 HP Continuous Feed Food Waste Disposer, for example, is equipped with exclusive anti-jamming features, sound-absorbing insulation, and a powerful motor, while Insinkerator’s Evolution Excel® handles more volume and more types of food waste than standard disposals while making 60% less noise.
If you’re considering adding a garbage disposal to your kitchen, or building one into a new kitchen or renovation, stop into one of our showrooms. We will be happy to discuss garbage disposal options with you and to go over the different brands and options. Our goal is to help you decide which garbage disposal will work best in your kitchen.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
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