I dislike garbage disposals with a burning passion. They seem to be mostly a phenomenon in the United States. But dear ones, life elsewhere without a garbage disposal is just fine. In rentals I manage that don’t have garbage disposals-which comprise about 1/3 of all the units I manage, in 12 years I’ve had about 3 clogged sink drains. For the remaining 2/3 of the units I manage that have garbage disposals I get about one maintenance call per month on average about a clogged disposal!
Ninety-nine percent of the time when a disposal jams it’s due to user error.
When a tenant reports a jammed disposal I refer them to online videos that instruct how to unjam a disposal and I let them know that if I have to send maintenance that the bill will be on them, unless we discover that the disposal is just old and worn out. In that case I remove the disposal all together and replace with normal drain pipes. Tenants don’t like this, but I help them to understand that disposals are not essential and are prone to having issues. And I suggest that they keep a small dish next to the sink for debris.
When removing a disposal I have my maintenance person install a “basket drain” in the opening.
In a world with dwindling resources and growing population, do we really need another electricity-sucking gadget in our homes? I say no way! They were invented in 1927 by an American. The rest of the world and everyone prior to 1927 survived just fine without one. You can too.
