KleenGard In-Sink Food Waste Disposers are a convenient way to dispose of food waste at home, but not everything can be disposed using a food waste disposer!
While most food waste disposers can grind almost anything you throw into them, the same cannot be said of your pipes. Some food waste such as grease, fats, and oils can clog the pipes, and lead to a kitchen disaster in the making. These particular food waste materials will often start out in a liquid state, and then eventually congeal, thus clogging the pipes in their congealed state.
Here’s a list of other food waste materials that are not suited to being flushed down your food waste disposer:
- Hard animal bones
- Whole avocado pits
- Whole artichokes
- Clam or oyster shells
- Concentrated oil
- Corn husks
- Plastic
- Metals
- Old leftover rice or noodles
- Dust
- Hair
- Edamame pods
- Rocks
- Glass
- Uncooked rice
- Paper
- Grease
- Whole asparagus
One other thing that people may not realize about food waste, is that creamy food like dairy products, peanut butter, ice creams, and butter can also cause issues. And while sometimes small amounts of grease will enter the pipes regardless when washing dishes, cold water can solve the issue of grease congealing, thus allowing your food waste disposer to break it up and reduce any clogging opportunities.
Of course, that is not to say that all food waste disposers cannot process any heavy duty food waste. Food waste disposers with higher horsepower can in fact tackle more tough to handle food such as hard bones and the like, perhaps even without causing too much noise. If you regularly need to grind bones and other heavy duty food waste items such as fruit pits and corn cobs, you probably need a food waste disposer with more horsepower like the KleenGard SD1250.
However, it is definitely still better to be safe than sorry and stay cautious about putting bones into your food waste disposer, as it could be that your home’s pipes can’t handle the intrusion instead. This is because even small to medium sized chunks of bone and other harder to grind food waste can cause a potential clogging in your pipes. Regardless if your house is a newer unit with pristine PVC pipes, or an old unit with rusted iron pipes, it’s still a good idea to maintain the habit of prevention rather than cure.