15 Common Items That Could Destroy Your Garbage Disposal
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The garbage disposal removes an assortment of food scraps and waste that might clog up your kitchen in no time and give you a foul odor in your space. It can also make cleaning up after dinner much easier. However, there’s an instance in which if you’re not careful about what you put in your garbage disposal, you’ll damage it.
In-sink garbage disposals offer a seemingly convenient solution for discarding food scraps. However, their environmental impact is worth considering. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) notes that in 2019 alone, an estimated four million tons of food waste went down the drain, and the least preferred option for food waste disposal was through the drain.
Grease, Oil, and Fats
Grease, oil, and fats are the most damaging substances for garbage disposals because they tend to harden when they cool. But when hot, these substances do hard work simulating liquids and harmless substances.
Once these substances enter the disposal, they start solidifying and coating the blades and inner walls. This layer thickens over time, impeding movement and limiting blade effectiveness. Ground-up grease and fats that build up in the disposal unit aren’t the only trouble.
If they build up further down the drain, a blockage will develop in the plumbing system. Grease that develops on layers hardens and captures food particles, creating a thick layer that is tough to remove and can emit odors. After a while, these clogs could need extensive plumbing repairs, as typical drain cleaning methods won’t cut it.
Eggshells
Eggshells may look harmless, but they can cause serious issues with garbage disposals. They come apart into a grainy, sandy mess that is too easy to settle and clog the disposal and pipes. The fine particles block the disposal and pipe interiors and clog the pipes, possibly causing blockages.
The thin membrane inside the eggshell can get around the disposal blades, like fibrous vegetables do, which adds to the list of things you don’t want inside this appliance. This layer can bind up within the disposal mechanism, back jams, and reduce grid power. Over time, it creates more frequent clogs and increases demands for more intensive cleaning to maintain the disposal in good working order.
Bones
Bones are among the hardest substances in household food waste, and they’re about as unsuitable as garbage disposals can be. Grinding bones can damage the blades and dull or bend them over time, which is something many disposals aren’t made for—most aren’t designed to handle dense materials.
Grinding bones strain the disposal motor and can result in a jam or a system burning out. Small bones are not excluded, which often don’t grind properly and get stuck in the disposal chamber or plumbing pipes, causing blockages that can be hard to clear.
Fibrous Vegetables (Celery, Asparagus, Corn Husks)
Fibrous vegetables, such as celery, asparagus, and corn husks, have long, stringy strands that tend to destroy a garbage disposal. However, these fibers will tend to wrap around the blades, making them unable to spin freely and causing them to jam.
As these fibers mix with the other food particles, they form a dense, tangled mass inside the chamber, making disposal quickly ineffective in grinding. Once they become tangled in the blades, they are difficult to remove from the disposal and, in many cases, must be extracted manually.
They can break themselves down further down the pipes to continue accumulating, causing gradual buildup and blockages in the plumbing pipes. Fibrous vegetable strands can cause repeated jams; over time, they can lead to frequent clogs that can damage the disposal motor.
Potato Peels
Potato peels are deceptively problematic for garbage disposals because of their high starch content. When ground up, the paste that forms becomes sticky and sticks to the blades, reducing disposal efficiency over time and clogging the disposal.
However, the situation worsens once this occurs with many potato peels. The pile quickly compacts and builds into a large clog on the disposal itself. This clog can strain the disposal motor or break the system. If left unaddressed, these clogs and jams will become clogged to the point where disposal will fail altogether.
Pasta and Rice
Pasta and rice are notorious for causing problems with garbage disposals because they expand when wet. Even after being cooked, these foods absorb more water when ground up and become sticky and glue-like. The pasta and rice passing into the disposal can coat the blades and walls, reducing grinding power and efficiency.
The swollen particles can clog pipes quickly if other food debris is present. They can also pile up over time, creating huge blockages that require professional help to clear. The water-absorbing properties of these seemingly innocuous items can cause great damage to the disposal and plumbing systems.
Coffee Grounds
But coffee grounds are notoriously terrible for garbage disposal. Though fine in texture, they still create a sludge-like substance that settles down in the disposal and pipes, sticking to the blade and walls. With time, this sludge layer gets thick enough that the grinding power is reduced, and clogs persist.
Coffee grounds also tend to absorb and trap other food particles, which pile up and form a dense, stinky, hard-to-pull block. While the disposal is in service, the particles build up and can eventually clog the entire drain, necessitating a difficult cleanup. A silent but bad problem is the slow accumulation of coffee grounds in disposals, pipes, and drains.
Fruit Pits and Large Seeds
Fruit pits, such as avocado, peach, or cherry pits, are very hard and dense, making them very difficult to grind. These pits are dull or strong enough to break the disposal blades, putting your motor under strain and potentially overheating it. When the pits don’t break down, they often stay put in the disposal chamber, resulting in clogs.
The pits would even be small enough to pass through, but they could still cause damage by lodging in pipes, causing terrible blockages. If neglected, the strain from trying to grind pits can lead to motor burnout and the loss of the whole thing, which must be replaced with professional repair or scrapped.
Onion Skins
Onion skins have a notorious thin, slippery membrane that likes to envelop disposal blades. This membrane, like the fibers from celery or corn husks, can stick to the blades and cause the disposal not to grind correctly. Once jammed, the disposal loses efficiency and requires manual extraction.
Ground-up onion skin particles accumulate more quickly than they break down in the disposal and pipes. This can lead to blockages and a slowing of grinding efficiency, making your disposal struggle to deal with even the simplest food waste over time. This often causes persistent jams with onion skins, resulting in permanent motor strain and life-shortening due to disposal.
Rubber Bands, Plastic, Metal, NonFood items
It’s possible to accidentally jam a rubber band, plastic, or even metal into a garbage disposal, and the resulting damage can be severe and usually irreversible. However, these materials are too tough or flexible for the disposal blades to break down, resulting in a jammed blade and a burnt-out motor.
Once thrown down the disposal, even nonfood items can create thermal damage that can cause permanent damage to the motor and often require replacement. Sharp or dense pieces can also damage internal mechanisms, reducing the disposal’s function and risk injury if sharp fragments are forced out.
Seafood Shells such as Shrimp, Crab and Lobster
Garbage disposals struggle to handle seafood shells from shrimp, crab, and lobster. They are dense, sharp, and hard shells that are hard to break down, making for good disposal blades, which is bad. When the blades start grinding, they can easily dull or chip, making the grind less efficient and clogging.
It also damages the blades and perhaps involves sand and salt within the seafood shell, causing further abrasion in the disposal. Eventually, this gritty texture will encourage the buildup in the pipes and become an even worse plumbing problem.
Nuts and Seeds
Garbage disposals have trouble blending nuts and seeds. When ground, nuts release oils and form a sticky paste that clings to the blades and pipes to prevent the system from working. This paste produces a peanut butter-like texture that is hard to wash away. This paste buildup will cause jams and decrease the disposal’s grinding efficiency.
Nuts and seed oils also contribute to the problem since they harden and trap food particles, resulting in thicker clogs. The accumulation of this residue over time will cause motor strain until the disposal fails.
Animal Fat
All animal fat is a problem for garbage disposals because it solidifies when it gets cold. As soon as it hits the disposal, the fat coats blades and interior walls, lowering efficiency and leading to blockages that will build up over time. The blades distill, harden, and restrict the blades, and this ultimately will cause jams to be able to decrease disposal functionality.
Fatty residue can also create very big blockages even further down the drain because once it has hardened in the pipes, it catches other particles. Failing to clean your clogs regularly leads to unpleasant solid smells from the kitchen area. If this is not addressed over time, layers of hardened fat can damage the disposal motor and result in expensive repairs.
Pumpkin, Squash, Artichokes (Stringy Foods)
Pumpkin, squash, artichokes, and other stringy foods can wrap around the disposal blades. These fibers clog the blades, jam them, and limit their grinding power. When you become entangled, disposing becomes less efficient, increasing your risk of clogs and motor strain.
The fibers can also block the plumbing system’s pipes if they travel down them. Particularly with stringy foods, disposals struggle because these foods don’t break down well and, therefore, become clogged frequently. This requires that they work harder, meaning that they will last less. Beyond that, persistent jams on stringy foods will eventually wear out motors by themselves.
Large Food Scraps
The fruit parts can easily overload a garbage disposal’s blades and motor. Large chunks of food placed into the disposal will not break down enough and will jam the blades, causing the motor to burn out if the situation is continually worked too hard.
The disposal has trouble processing other waste when these jams are introduced. These large scraps are not processed, so they can continue getting caught further down the drain, causing blockages that can be hard to clear.
For example, these blockages can result in backed-up water, smelly water, and, in some cases, total plumbing failure. Large amounts of food scraps are a leading cause of premature disposal breakdown and need expensive repairs due primarily to overloading disposal with a single load of food.
Disclaimer – This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information.
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