Would love to add one rule that has the added benefit of reducing trashcan smell immensely... thou shalt compost! Composting means that the vast majority of my food waste never sees the inside of my kitchen trash and instead that trashcan is used for plastic food wrapping.
I was all set to be mad at myself for cleaning my trash can this morning before I saw this post. And then I realized that you have trained me too well. I find myself asking WWJD? before I clean anything and I was pretty spot on here!
I will add that switching to a mini can that mounts on the door of my lower cabinets right by the sink has been life changing. It's much less of a chore to take the garbage out now.
The fridge gets cleaned out on Sundays and then trash is immediately take outside (pickup is Monday mornings). Living in nyc and having a cat/dog who know how to open the trash can means any particularly smelly food trash is immediately bagged and taken to the outside trash cans.
Thank you -- this is so helpful! I recently moved from a three-trash-days-a-week neighborhood to a one-trash-day-a-week town and immediately started stashing organic trash (chicken bones and ham fat) in a zipper bag in the freezer. Not ideal because the freezer isn't huge, but better safe than sorry under the heat dome.
The Lysol rule is one that I learned in food service and it’s a good one. I use whatever spray-format all purpose cleaner is at hand.
Another rule I’d propose - possibly more for recycling? - is to rinse. Possibly obvious but saves a lot of schmutz (and our recycling provider requires it, and they also don’t accept bagged items.)
It pains me to write this, and I almost didn’t, but I’m going to counter one of your rules. You’re not supposed to intentionally put food down the garbage disposal. It’s only designed to catch bits of food as you’re doing dishes. My aunt’s plumbing backed up into a huge mess because she was shoving a ton of food down the disposal, and the plumber told her to cut that out.
I (a conflicted garbage-disposal owner who composts aggressively) once heard garbage disposals referred to as “a pre-chewed foodstream for rats” and it has never, ever left me
Hi Amy! I am that nerd who follows trade people around and asks them to opine on everything related to their jobs I can think of. I have asked three plumbers from three companies about food and garbage disposals and here is what they agreed on:
1. Anything high fat must be liquid when hot AND when as cold as it is in your local sewer system when you are disposing of it.
2. If you did not personally spec out the garbage disposal don’t feed it anything that would pose a choking hazard to a toddler
3. if you did personally spec out the garbage disposal and it is intended to be used as a food grinding MACHINE, anything that isn’t bones and adheres to rule 1 is fine. Not all disposals have the same purpose despite going in the same spot in the plumbing.
4. Either way, after running your disposal with a higher than usual volume of waste flush with hot and then with cold water. (Hot to help with dissolving what is disolvable, cold to make sure any metal pipes lurking between you and the sewer contract back to full width after the hot.)
Also if you have made it this far and are ready to replace your garbage disposal with something actually meant to grind food, I would like to bring to your attention the existence of a tool called a garbage disposal jack. You will want to borrow one to install your new disposal.
Would love to add one rule that has the added benefit of reducing trashcan smell immensely... thou shalt compost! Composting means that the vast majority of my food waste never sees the inside of my kitchen trash and instead that trashcan is used for plastic food wrapping.
This is such a good one (and I bet your begonias looooove that compost!)
I was all set to be mad at myself for cleaning my trash can this morning before I saw this post. And then I realized that you have trained me too well. I find myself asking WWJD? before I clean anything and I was pretty spot on here!
I will add that switching to a mini can that mounts on the door of my lower cabinets right by the sink has been life changing. It's much less of a chore to take the garbage out now.
The fridge gets cleaned out on Sundays and then trash is immediately take outside (pickup is Monday mornings). Living in nyc and having a cat/dog who know how to open the trash can means any particularly smelly food trash is immediately bagged and taken to the outside trash cans.
Thank you -- this is so helpful! I recently moved from a three-trash-days-a-week neighborhood to a one-trash-day-a-week town and immediately started stashing organic trash (chicken bones and ham fat) in a zipper bag in the freezer. Not ideal because the freezer isn't huge, but better safe than sorry under the heat dome.
The Lysol rule is one that I learned in food service and it’s a good one. I use whatever spray-format all purpose cleaner is at hand.
Another rule I’d propose - possibly more for recycling? - is to rinse. Possibly obvious but saves a lot of schmutz (and our recycling provider requires it, and they also don’t accept bagged items.)
It pains me to write this, and I almost didn’t, but I’m going to counter one of your rules. You’re not supposed to intentionally put food down the garbage disposal. It’s only designed to catch bits of food as you’re doing dishes. My aunt’s plumbing backed up into a huge mess because she was shoving a ton of food down the disposal, and the plumber told her to cut that out.
I (a conflicted garbage-disposal owner who composts aggressively) once heard garbage disposals referred to as “a pre-chewed foodstream for rats” and it has never, ever left me
Hi Amy! I am that nerd who follows trade people around and asks them to opine on everything related to their jobs I can think of. I have asked three plumbers from three companies about food and garbage disposals and here is what they agreed on:
1. Anything high fat must be liquid when hot AND when as cold as it is in your local sewer system when you are disposing of it.
2. If you did not personally spec out the garbage disposal don’t feed it anything that would pose a choking hazard to a toddler
3. if you did personally spec out the garbage disposal and it is intended to be used as a food grinding MACHINE, anything that isn’t bones and adheres to rule 1 is fine. Not all disposals have the same purpose despite going in the same spot in the plumbing.
4. Either way, after running your disposal with a higher than usual volume of waste flush with hot and then with cold water. (Hot to help with dissolving what is disolvable, cold to make sure any metal pipes lurking between you and the sewer contract back to full width after the hot.)
Also if you have made it this far and are ready to replace your garbage disposal with something actually meant to grind food, I would like to bring to your attention the existence of a tool called a garbage disposal jack. You will want to borrow one to install your new disposal.
Love this nerdery!