7 things Northern Virginia plumbers wish you'd stop putting down your garbage disposal

If your kitchen sink is backing up or your disposal hums instead of grinding, odds are something went down it that shouldn't have. A garbage disposal is built for soft food scraps. It isn't a trash can, and it doesn't have blades: blunt impellers push food against a grinding ring until it's small enough to wash down the drain.

With decades of combined experience on Northern Virginia service calls, our technicians have pulled bottle caps, rings, toys, and even a rubber duck out of disposals. Most trouble comes from the same seven things: grease, fibrous vegetables, bones and pits, starches, coffee grounds, eggshells, and anything that isn't food.

Seven things that don't belong in a disposal

Everything on this list goes in the trash or the compost instead.

1. Grease and cooking oil

Grease is the most common cause of the kitchen drain clogs we see. Bacon grease or olive oil goes down warm and liquid. As it moves through the pipes, it cools into a waxy coating, and layer after layer builds until the drain is blocked.

We've seen entire kitchen drain lines packed solid with hardened grease, the kind that takes hydro jetting to clear. Let grease cool and scrape it into the trash, and wipe oily pans with a paper towel before they go in the sink.

2. Fibrous foods

Stringy vegetables don't get chopped. They wrap around the impellers like floss around a finger. The motor bogs down and trips the overload, and repeated jams shorten the unit's life. The usual suspects:

• Celery stalks and leaves
• Onion and garlic skins
• Corn husks and silk
• Asparagus ends
• Artichoke leaves

3. Bones and fruit pits

The impellers are made for soft scraps, not chicken bones or peach pits. Even small wing bones can jam the mechanism or damage the grinding chamber. We've replaced plenty of disposals because someone tried to grind bones, and the usual result is bent impellers, a worn grind ring, or a burned-out motor.

4. Pasta, rice, and bread

Starches seem harmless, but they swell when they soak up water. A little leftover rice turns into paste. The disposal grinds it just fine, and then it settles in the drain pipe downstream and builds into a stubborn blockage that takes snaking or hydro jetting to clear. We see more of these after big family dinners. Leftovers belong in the fridge or the trash.

5. Coffee grounds

Coffee grounds get called drain-safe. They aren't. Grounds don't dissolve. They settle in the trap and the low spots of the drain line and pack together, especially when there's grease in the line. Grounds and grease together make some of the most stubborn clogs our drain cleaning crews deal with.

6. Eggshells

The old tale says eggshells sharpen disposal blades. Disposals don't have blades, so there's nothing to sharpen. The thin membrane inside the shell can cling to the impellers and contribute to jams, so shells are better off in the compost.

7. Non-food items

Things fall in, and some get pushed in. Our technicians have recovered:

• Bottle caps and twist ties
• Rubber bands and hair ties
• Pieces of aluminum foil
• Small toys
• Medication pills

Non-food items can damage the grind chamber or jam the motor.

How to run your disposal so it lasts

Run cold water before, during, and for about 15 seconds after you use it. Cold water keeps grease solid, so it gets ground up and carried away. Hot water melts grease, and it hardens again farther down the line, which is exactly what you don't want.

When we service a disposal, we clean the grind chamber and check the impellers and grind ring for wear, so small problems get caught before the unit quits.

One safety rule: never reach into a disposal, even with the switch off. If it jams or keeps tripping, cut the power at the circuit breaker and call us. We've seen too many hand injuries from people who trusted the wall switch.

Signs your disposal needs repair or replacement

Disposals don't last forever, and a unit that's been jammed a few times wears out sooner. Call for garbage disposal repair or replacement if you notice:

• It won't turn on, or keeps tripping the reset button
• Loud grinding or rattling noises
• Water backing up into the sink
• Bad odors that won't go away

Our family-owned team will tell you straight whether a repair or a new unit makes more sense, and you'll get a written, upfront quote before any work begins. If someone else already quoted you, we'll give you a free second opinion on it. Call Pioneer Plumbers at (703) 508-3088.