to be astounded that this is available to buy here?

[mousymouse]

this
I know these from living in the us, but we never used it because of the rats.
just doesn*t seem right to me, have learned that food waste should never go down the drain because it blocks them and attracks rats...

But it's not a plughole, is it? It's a waste disposal.

Is this a plug (no pun) for your product? If not then what an odd post!

That's why we have compost bins and a green Joanna.
No food goes down the sink in any form.

I dont get it

rockbird, where do you suppose the waste ends up?

well it is an knife in the drain of your kitchen sink that cuts up food waste really small which then is disposed of with your waste water.

Do they just grind up the leftovers and put them down the sink?

Urgh! We have one of those in our installed-in-the-80s-by-previous-owner-hideous-kitchen. It gives me the willies. The only it's good for is disposing of the yucky stuff that seems to accumulate of its own accord in the little disposal sink but is difficult to remove manually. Oh, and little horn egg spoons...

Oh riven don't.. that made me shudder..

I grew up my whole life with in sink garbage disposals and found it odd to never see them when I moved to the UK.

Most houses in the US have septic systems that are sealed. I have never seen a rat due to having a disposal.

We had one of those in our kitchen in the 80s! We used to call it Jaws. All our teaspoons had mangled handles from being caught in it.

It seems somehow wrong to mash up and wash away waste food down the sink...

American culture on the whole does not seem to lean towards reduce,recycle and reuse in my experience.
Raw food materials go in the guinea pigs, into the compost bin, the cat or into bird feeders depending on the type.
Cooked materials go into the green joanna and rot down into the soil.
Mostly there is little waste because I mostly cook as much as my family eats and not more.

Stuff from the waste disposal goes inot the foul drain doesn't it? Where toilet waste goes? I don't think it goes into the surface water drain.

www.diydata.com/plumbing/waste_disposal_units/sink_waste_disposal_units.php

From the sound of this, it uses the same drain as the sink.

But its illegal to flush food waste down the toilet isn't it...I'll try and find a link for that...

(Incidentally, its technically illegal to dispose of human waste in the bin as well - you are supposed to sluice your disposable nappies you know!)

What is a Joanna? We compost all our raw food but I have to bin the cooked stuff - no local waste collection. It sounds just what I need!

Which makes me wonder why we think it's OK to put dog poo in little plastic bags in bins for landfill.

Can you not compost cooked food then? I am just planning on buying a compost bin, but know little about it....

What's a green Joanna? I put cooked food waste into the bokashi bin.

Its probably not, technically, though technically its not human waste I suppose...

And after you have put your hand in to get the spoon you have dropped in it, someone switches the damn thing on...........

Some areas of the US are way ahead of us in recycling etc.

Does it not depend how their sewage is dealt with? No doubt people from Greece and Turkey think the UK is disgusting the way we all throw loo roll down the toilet rather than putting it in the bin for safe disposal the way we do.

they do
[d'oh]

Green joanna, you need a decent sized garden and bury the base properly. I put chickenwire round the base before I buried it and haven't had a rat problem.
www.greatgreensystems.com/
I'd love a bokashi bin, but they were a bit pricey the last time I looked.