in sink Garbage disposal downside?
> @catbk
> you use more water swishing down coffee grounds, or vegetable scraps and other assorted junk down the disposal than you do if you’ve scraped the debris into a receptacle
you might, but I don’t. i am good at multitasking.
randolph
in General Discussion 7 years and 3 months ago
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28 replies
elm_bk | 7 years and 3 months ago
Hi, our lower floor tenants wish to put in a garbage disposal at their own expense. What potential downside could their be to us as homeowners if we add this to their kitchen/our overall plumbing system? Thanks.
yudashasom | 7 years and 3 months ago
Tell them NO. The downside is that they will ask for more and more, and feel like they “fixed up the place” which is never good. The apartment was rented as-is.
randolph | 7 years and 3 months ago
i love having one because it means almost no food scraps in the trash (you can put pretty much anything down it except bones) so less smelly and less chance you attract bugs.
as far as i know there is no downside for the plumbing system. my recommendation would be to make sure they get the most powerful one that fits under the sink. i have this one
mozeeatupu | 7 years and 3 months ago
Once it’s installed, or when the tenant leaves, it’s your responsibility to maintain, repair and replace.
randolph | 7 years and 3 months ago
there is no maintenance with a garbage disposal, unless it breaks i guess but any plumber knows how to deal with it. in my old apartment we had one for 8 years and never had a single issue. it just works.
people in NYC act like they are some weird esoteric technology but in most other parts of the county they are as common as light switches.
hancockone | 7 years and 3 months ago
I have one in my unit, 10 years and no issues. I had one put in my tenant’s unit so they will not be keeping food scraps in the kitchen to attract bugs/etc. They have had 2 or three episodes in the past 10 years that required the line to be snaked. It could be the configuration of that drain or how they used it. But I still would do it again. It just works.
nyc_sport | 7 years and 3 months ago
There were illegal in NYC until 20 years ago, and most high rise buildings still prohibit them. So if you grew up here, they are indeed a foreign concept to many.
MDR | 7 years and 3 months ago
From an environmental standpoint, I think that all the organic matter that you might send through a garbage disposal would be better off composted. In some neighborhoods that is mandatory. You may think that garbage sent down the drain magically disappears but it ends up in our sewer system that is already overburdened. It takes a lot of energy to remove the solids and treat the wastewater so that it can be clean enough to be released in the rivers. Why add to that burden? During large storm events the sewers that also handle storm water release untreated effluent into Gowanus Canal and other places because they don’t have the capacity to handle the volume. It may be convenient to send your waste down the drain but also think about the environmental cost of that.
randolph | 7 years and 3 months ago
I’m gonna need a citation on that ^^^^ . It’s hard for me to believe that puréed broccoli stems and egg shells in the wastewater is hurting the environment. And which neighborhoods have “mandatory” composting? These are some pretty dubious claims.
slopefarm | 7 years and 3 months ago
Park Slope is one of the neighborhoods where residents are expected to sort compostables/organic waste into separate containers for DOS pickup on trash day. I know there are other neighborhoods with this obligation, though it is not citywide. DOS has separate facilities for dealing with the organic waste, though there has been a mixed record over time on the availability of vendors to take the organics off of the City’s hands and dispose/repurpose that material in an ecologically sound way.
The issue with having millions of households send pureed food waste into the sewage stream is the burden on sewage plants to separate liquids from solids for treatment. Food put into the sewage stream through a disposal adds to the mass that sewage plants must handle in the settling tanks for ultimate solid sewage waste disposal. Some sewage plants are already at capacity and occasionally have to discharge untreated or partially treated sewage with solids into the bay/sea/river etc. Adding to the mass the sewage plants treat will increase the frequency of these occurrences. That is not good for the environment, and the presence of a bit of additional broccoli in the untreated sewage that is released does not mitigate the harm.
randolph | 7 years and 3 months ago
where i live in bed stuy the city won’t even give us the compost bins. i guess we aren’t gentrified enough.
i am still chary of these extra burden on the sewage system arguments. anyone got a scientific article or something I could read? my understanding is that in a larger environmental sense it is
1. composting
2. garbage disposal
3. food waste in trash to landfill
3 is worst because of the extra weight it adds to trash that fossil fuel burning vehicles have to pick up and cart around. but i could be mistaken,
randolph | 7 years and 3 months ago
evg25 | 7 years and 3 months ago
The same way that disposals help prevent foul odor from food scraps, it can also be the cause of one. When not properly maintained, the disposal can allow food particles to stay along the blade and the inner lining causing it to rot inside the unit.
And then, of course, there is the issue of injury. If someone gets injured, you can rest assured that the landlord will be named in the lawsuit.
murph | 7 years and 3 months ago
We installed our InSinkErator a decade ago. It does require a dedicated power suply line and manual cut-off switch for safety around water.
Only problem was when our son dropped his spare change into it. Not good. I was able to swapped out myself for another.
MDR: Problems with the sewer system, brilliant for its day, is storm water overflow. Per capita water use is dropping(thank meters); however, the population and severe rain are growing. A real problem is the lack of grease traps at new niche restaurants popping up and clogging sewer lines. Not to worry. Park Slope sh*t doesn’t smell. But you know that.
helen40
in General Discussion 7 years and 3 months ago
To answer the question, “No.” Don’t let your tenant install a disposal or make these kinds of improvements. There is essentially no upside to you and plenty of potential downside. As others have posted, if you own the house, you also own the “improvement,” the maintenance responsibility and the liability. And when it breaks, you can be sure the tenant will ask you to fix.
And, if in fact it requires a dedicated electric service and cut off switch, you are talking about the tenant managing a construction project. Bad idea.
Guest User | 7 years and 3 months ago
i’ve also been told by respectable plumbers that they find garbage disposals to cause problems in the piping downstream. Especially if you have an older building with older pipes, they’re not designed to carry the type of material that goes into a disposal. Just like grease is bad for the sewer system (google fatberg… or don’t… nah, probably don’t), folks using a disposal end up putting stuff down the drain that will cause buildups elsewhere.
Guest User | 7 years and 3 months ago
i’ve also been told by respectable plumbers that they find garbage disposals to cause problems in the piping downstream. Especially if you have an older building with older pipes, they’re not designed to carry the type of material that goes into a disposal. Just like grease is bad for the sewer system (google fatberg… or don’t… nah, probably don’t), folks using a disposal end up putting stuff down the drain that will cause buildups elsewhere.
randolph | 7 years and 3 months ago
> @Maggie O
> folks using a disposal end up putting stuff down the drain that will cause buildups elsewhere.
in my research i find zero evidence to support this claim.
Guest User | 7 years and 3 months ago
randolph, you’re clearly a bot working for big-disposal. i am not familiar with your extensive research in the behavioral tendencies of garbage disposal owners. i know what i’ve been told by plumbers and i know that despite being told that it is bad for the sewer system lots of people still pour grease straight down the drain (i watched someone do it just the other day) so in my mind it follows that there are other instruction that would not be followed.