Kitchen waste disposal - do you have one?

[ThisOneAndThatOne]

I am putting in a new kitchen and am thinking about having one.

So what are your experiences?

Do you put all your food waste in it? Including bones?

Does it really mash it all up small enough? Do you ever suffer from blocked drains?

Thank you!

Had one a while back but TBH after the initial novelty wore off, we never used it. When children came along we switched it off for good as I was afraid they would put their little hands down it! :(

I would love one

But fear I may put my own hands in it

no - never had one and now have a septic tank so can't anyway.

it is rather a wasteful way of disposing of food waste, using clean water and electricity to do so!

you shouldn't have any food waste anyway except peelings, bones and tea bags. Bones are the only tricky one - if you have a large compost heap they can be buried, but if you don't they may have to go into the bin. The rest can be composted at home or go in the council food waste collection. If you don't have either then I still think it is better to put it in the bin rather than waste water and risk blocked drains.

We have one. Like it. Had one years ago in a house we bought so when we were putting in a new kitchen here we put one in.

We don't put bones in ours. Can't put onion skin either. So still have to use the dreaded food waste bin but not too much. I do try to compost peelings etc.

I like it as I hate food waste bins and don't have a messy smelly food waste bin full of slop.

the house we moved into has one in the island (which has a separate sink from the main kitchen sink).

we love it. having previously lived in the US for a number of years, we got quite accustomed to having one, and i didn't realise you could get them in the UK.

we have 4 young children, and there is inevitably a rather significant volume of food waste, most of which goes down the waste disposal. this include raw vegetable offcuts, banana skins, apple cores etc. i'm sure there are "greener" ways of dealing with this waste, but it works fantastically well for us, and avoids the need for a food waste recycling bin.

pretty much the only thing that doesn't go down there is any sort of bone, although i suspect it might even be able to deal with chicken bones.

no problem with blocked drains ever.

the switch to operate the waste disposal is placed under the sink in such a manner that you would have to be the world's best contortionist to be able to have a body part in contact with the blades and still operate the switch.

Thanks everyone.

I will double check how the on/off switch works and is positioned before installing. But I am very tempted.

Our kitchen was renovated while we were living overseas and the builder/electricians forgot to put a switch for ours - we had to go into the utility room and switch it on from there! We now have a switch on the front of our kitchen cupboard by the sink.

No. I'm not as green as specialsubject above, but do think that it's a huge shame to be using clean water to dispose of things where they will later block sewers and create additional biogas... www.treehugger.com/kitchen-design/is-my-in-sink-garbage-disposal-eco-friendly.html