Disposer or how to wipe everything into dust.
Most of the problems in our lives arise from garbage: the one in our heads prevents us from adequately perceiving the world around us, the one on the streets disfigures our cities, and, finally, food garbage in the kitchen causes an unpleasant odor and serves as a breeding ground for bacteria.
By the way, it is not necessary to throw waste into the trash can — it can be crushed with a special device
Trash, even thrown into the can, can attract uninvited guests into the house — midges, flies, cockroaches or even mice.
But these are not all the disadvantages of trash cans — waste must be taken out regularly, and it is good if the house has a garbage chute. And taking it out into the street, say, living in a house without an elevator, in twenty-degree frost is not at all a pleasant experience.
But all these problems are unknown to those city dwellers whose apartments are equipped with an inconspicuous device that cleverly copes with all food waste — a disposer.
This device is very similar in design and function to an electric meat grinder. Only it does not chop food, but what is left of it.
Namely: vegetable scraps, peels, cores and pits of fruits, rinds of watermelons and melons, nuts, seeds, fish, eggshells, chicken and small meat bones, pasta, cereals, bread and much, much more. True, there are some limitations.
So, you cannot throw large meat bones, corn cobs, onion skins, large fish scales and shells of large sea animals into the disposer.
In addition, it is strictly forbidden to use the device to get rid of non-food waste: polyethylene, all kinds of rags, threads, metal and plastic objects.
The main advantage of the disposer is its location: it is placed under the kitchen sink. In fact, in the same place where the trash can is usually located.
The inlet of the device is connected to the sink drain, and the outlet is connected to the sewer pipe. As a result, the kitchen area does not decrease, and the comfort in it only increases.
Ease of choice
There are two types of garbage grinders — electric and mechanical.
The former consist of two parts: an electric motor and a crushing chamber. In the chamber there is a disk, which, rotating at high speed, grinds the waste, throwing it on the ribbed walls, and several special hammers that finish off the garbage.
It is extremely easy to use: turn on the cold water, press the button to turn on the disposer, then simply throw food waste into the sink in small portions, tamping them down with a special spatula if necessary. Everything else happens automatically. The food scraps are ground to a homogeneous mass (its particles are no larger than 3 mm) and gradually washed down the drain.
At the same time, a specific quiet sound is heard. After all the garbage is thrown out, wait until you hear only the noise of water and the hum of the motor. Then you can turn off the device and only then close the tap. In no case the other way around.
Some manufacturers recommend not to turn off the device immediately after the completion of the crushing of garbage, but to wait another 10-15 minutes.
This is necessary for more thorough removal of food waste. The good thing is that using a disposer will hardly increase your electricity bill. In a month, it consumes as much electricity as a 100-watt incandescent lamp burns in an hour.
If this is too much for you, get yourself a mechanical disposer: it grinds garbage with several moving knives, driven by the energy of running water. This simple mechanism works almost silently, which distinguishes it from its electric counterpart. Its operating scheme is similar to an electric disposer, with the only difference being that you don’t have to press any buttons – just turn on the water, throw in the garbage, turn off the water.
Those who have water meters installed will find it useful to know that using a dispenser increases daily water consumption by an average of 2.6%. The cost of the device, depending on the model, ranges from $162 to $549.
Safety and installation
Engineers have worked hard to make the disposer safe. It was specially designed so that neither fingers, nor hands, nor other body parts of an adult or child would be harmed when shredding garbage. Additional safety is guaranteed by the presence of an emergency stop button — it can be used if a metal or plastic object accidentally gets into the disposer.
You can connect the disposer to almost any sink. The main requirement is a drain hole with a diameter of 89–90 mm. If you have a stainless steel sink with a smaller hole, it’s not a problem: skilled installers will expand it to the required dimensions. You can install the device yourself, but it’s still better to entrust it to a specialist. All “home craftsmen” undertake such work, and some sellers include installation in their list of services. The entire procedure will take you about an hour and a half.
Gently press
In addition to a food waste disposer, you can also install a press for non-food waste in your apartment. This device is a compact cabinet with a sliding door, installed under the kitchen countertop next to the sink or anywhere else. It is convenient that most manufacturers allow you to change the height of their presses. However, you can only change it upwards.
For this purpose, the product has four legs with a position regulator. The press takes up very little space: its height is 81 cm, width is 31 cm, depth is 51 cm, weight is 61 kg (less than the average dishwasher). The design of the unit allows you to easily remove the garbage bag without lifting it. Even a child can handle this task.
This assistant can easily get rid of all non-food waste: this device turns paper, cardboard, plastic, glass bottles and jars, tin and aluminum into one compact package (creating a force of 2270 kg, it reduces the original volume of garbage by 5-15 times). Throwing bags with leftover food and drinks into it is highly discouraged — an unpleasant smell will certainly appear in the kitchen.
Please note that non-food waste presses use special garbage bags (ordinary ones can break them). They are sold in stores of companies that sell the presses themselves. In addition, you will receive several such bags when you buy the device. Such a device costs from $ 1.2 thousand.
The sewer is happy
Immediately after the American John Hames invented an automatic garbage grinder in 1927, the scientific community began to debate its safety for sewer networks. And they burned for quite a long time — until the 50s of the last century. Then the US Health Agency conducted the first studies confirming that disposers do not clog the sewer. Moreover, they clean it. It turned out that a slurry of finely ground food waste prevents rust from forming inside sewer pipes and extends their service life.
Having obtained such results, American officials recommended the use of a disposer in all new buildings in the United States.
Since then, the garbage disposer has won the love of many bourgeois housewives. In their hit parade, it is second only to refrigerators, stoves and food processors. In America, about 80% of new houses are equipped with these devices.