Grind to powder.
Most of the problems in our lives arise from garbage: the one in the head prevents us from adequately perceiving the world around us, the one in the streets disfigures our cities, and, finally, , food waste in the kitchen causes an unpleasant odor and serves as a breeding ground for bacteria. By the way, waste does not have to be thrown into the trash bin — it can be crushed with a special device
Garbage, even thrown into a bin, can attract uninvited guests into the house — gnats, flies, cockroaches or even mice. But these are not all the disadvantages of trash cans — waste needs to be taken out regularly, and it’s good if there is a garbage chute in the house.
And taking it outside, 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 residents whose apartments are equipped with an inconspicuous device that deftly copes with all food waste — a dispenser.
This device, in its structure and functions, is very similar to an electric meat grinder.
Only he doesn’t chop the food, but what’s left of it. Namely: leftover vegetables, peels, cores and seeds 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 restrictions.
So, you cannot throw large meat bones, corn cobs, onion peels, a lot of large fish scales and shells of large sea animals into the dispenser.
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. Actually, 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 to the sewer pipe. As a result, the kitchen area does not decrease, but the comfort in it only increases.
Easy selection
There are two types of waste shredders – electric and mechanical. The first ones consist of two parts: an electric motor and a crushing chamber.
The chamber contains a disk, which, rotating at high speed, crushes the waste, throwing it onto the ribbed walls, and several special hammers that finish off the waste.
It is extremely simple to use: open cold water, press the dispenser power button, then simply throw food waste into the sink in small portions, compacting them if necessary with a special spatula.
Everything else happens automatically. Edible scraps are ground to a homogeneous mass (its particles are no larger than 3 mm) and are gradually washed down the drain.
At the same time, a specific quiet sound is heard. After the trash has been thrown out, wait until you hear only the sound of water and the hum of the motor.
Then you can turn off the device and only then close the tap. In no case is it the other way around.
Some manufacturers recommend not turning off the device immediately after crushing the waste, but waiting another 10-15 minutes.
This is necessary for more thorough removal of food residues. The nice thing is that using a shredder will hardly increase your electricity bill. In a month it consumes the same amount of electricity as a 100-watt incandescent lamp burns in an hour.
If this is too much for you, install a mechanical disposer: it threshes debris with several movable knives driven by the energy of running water.
This simple mechanism operates almost silently, which distinguishes it from its electric counterpart.
The way it works is similar to an electric dispenser, with the only difference being that you don’t need to press any buttons — just turn on the water, throw in the trash, turn off the water.
For those who have installed water meters, it will be 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.
Security and installation
The engineers did a great job on the safety of the disposer. It was specially created so that neither fingers, nor hands, nor other parts of the body of an adult or child would be harmed when shredding garbage. Additional safety is guaranteed by the presence of an emergency shutdown button — you can use it if a metal or plastic object accidentally gets into the dispenser.
The dispenser can be connected to almost any sink. The main condition is a drain hole with a diameter of 89–90 mm. If you have a stainless steel sink with a smaller hole, it doesn’t matter: skilled installers will expand it to the required size.
You can install the device yourself, but it is still better to entrust this to a specialist. All “home craftsmen” undertake such work, and some sellers include installation in the list of their services. The whole procedure will take you about an hour and a half.
Gently press
In addition to the food waste shredder, 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 in any other place. Conveniently, most manufacturers allow you to change the height of their presses. True, it can only be changed in the direction of increase.
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 – 31 cm, depth – 51 cm, weight – 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 cope with this task.
Such an 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 waste 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 special garbage bags are used in presses for non-food waste (ordinary ones can break them). They are sold in stores of companies that sell the presses themselves. In addition, you will receive several of these bags when purchasing the device.
Such a device costs from $1.2 thousand.
The sewer system is happy
Immediately after the American John Hames invented an automatic waste shredder in 1927, controversy broke out in the scientific community over its safety for sewer networks. And they burned for quite a long time — until the 50s of the last century.
Then the US Public Health Agency conducted studies for the first time confirming that dispensers do not clog sewers. Not only that, they clean it. It turned out that a slurry of finely ground food waste prevents the formation of rust inside sewer pipes and extends their service life.
Having received such results, American officials recommended the use of a disposer in all new buildings in the United States. Since then, the waste shredder has won the love of many bourgeois housewives.
In their hit parade, it is second only to refrigerators, cookers and food processors.
In America, about 80% of new homes are equipped with these devices.