The country has debated for decades whether in-sink garbage disposal machines are a good idea. They were legally banned over large parts of the country at first. The fear was that these appliances would send food particles into the sewage system and cause terrible clogs. Most of the rest of the world still remains suspicious of these appliances. They are mostly a North American idea to this day.
What is it about garbage disposals that people in the US and Canada manage to appreciate that the rest of the world doesn’t? Are these appliances really a good idea?
To begin, they help you use less plastic
You don’t just toss garbage directly into the garbage truck — you pack it up in plastic bin liner bags. You use them every day, and it’s a lot of plastic to put out into the world. With a garbage disposal unit, however, you grind your household waste up into minute bits and send it directly into the sewage line. You simply don’t need to use plastic packaging for garbage anymore.
There is less sent to the landfills, too
Whatever ground-up food and other waste does not decompose on its way along the sewage lines to the sewage treatment plants, is strained out, collected and trucked to landfills. Many argue that it all amounts to the same thing — whether you use a garbage disposal unit or set your garbage out on the curb, it all ends up in landfills.
In truth, though, having large garbage trucks crawl along streets expends far more energy than having garbage picked up at a single point. In many cases, water treatment plants do not even need to truck such garbage out. Instead, they simply compost it to turn it into natural manure. Garbage disposals do help recycle waste and save energy better than conventional methods.
Disposal units simply save time
When it’s possible to toss garbage directly down a disposal unit, you need to spend far less time on a number of garbage-related chores — putting garbage in bin liners, packing those bags up, taking the trash out, cleaning the garbage bins on a regular basis, worrying about keeping local wildlife away and so on. None of this cycle of chores exists with disposal units.
Special designs help households with septic tanks
According to Hutzel, a leading provider of garbage disposal repair services, people who live in homes equipped with septic tanks have conventionally been told to not use garbage disposal units,. The added load is likely to fill up the septic tank frequently. Modern disposal units, however, come with special enzyme action designs that help break garbage down quickly within septic tanks. With such technology, the convenience of these units becomes available to all.
