How to Keep Garbage Disposal Clean 

Prevention is better than cure, and no matter how much one resists it,  this little machine in our kitchens pretty much proves it.

Garbage disposals are significant for keeping your kitchen clean and making cleanup faster by disposing of food waste. Still, sometimes you’ll need to clean the garbage disposal and give it a bit of freshening up.

You might be wondering how you can keep your garbage disposal clean and prepped at all times. Maintaining garbage disposal is never as easy as one tends to take it.  Here are some ways in which you can keep your garbage disposal smelling fresh.

Ice Cubes

You must have heard that putting ice cubes in the garbage disposal will help you eliminate smells and sharpen the blades. It is just a myth as ice is not as helpful as a bladed garbage disposal unit. While ice cubes can still clean the disposal grinding components, ice tends to entirely, unfortunately, melt before it sweeps the grinding chamber thoroughly, therefore not qualifying as a proper means. It enables it to keep your garbage disposal clean.

So the next time someone suggests a way to sharpen their garbage disposal blades, you can confidently put a myth to rest and tell them there are no blades! Although using enough ice would enable you to create the same explosive feeling as one crisp ice block. You allow the impeller to crush multiple portions better and clean up the internal segment and knocking around the ice to dislodge the debris stuck inside the garbage disposal unit. You are keeping your garbage disposal clean, although not entirely accurate in all cases.

Citrus Fruit

If your garbage disposal smells bad, then it means it had gotten dirty or filthy and requires a cleanup. It has a foul odor. You can help to neutralize. It can contain the smell quite easily by grinding a citrus fruit like a lemon or an orange. You can always use a couple of minutes to read up on the acidic properties of citric acids, in which citrus fruits are chock full. Using this method gives you that clean, aromatic essence and helps to keep your garbage disposal clean.

Cut the fruit into wedges, turn the disposal on, and put the wedges down one at a time along with a steady stream of cold water. The fruit rinds will help clean the grind components while the citrus scent will provide a fresh smell. If you want to use something more challenging than citrus fruit, you can cut a peach in half and place it down the disposal. And throw in the pit. Even the hole would be contributing to keeping the garbage disposal clean.

The hard peach pit will help to dislodge any food waste stuck in the disposal.

Use Frozen Soap Water

Using soap ice can easily ensure the soap scent dwells deep within every bit of the impeller or blade segment. Therefore, cleaning the blades while also providing the impeller is cleaned with multiple soap ice blocks to keep your garbage disposal better clean and smelling fresh and fragrant. It would be hard to manage in a regular setting. We can understand it must be uncomfortable or very time consuming to figure out the right measurements here. But the ideal figure here would be 25% soap 75% water, which would translate to 1 part liquid soap and 3 part water, which would ensure the soap and water infuse correctly.

There is another means of getting the garbage disposal cleaned here, using tiny portions of solid lime soap. It would crush against the impeller enabling it to retain the scent and exceptionally well if there is hot water running along with it. That ends up allowing the impeller to squish the soap particles better. This squishing grates the warm semi-liquid soap and ensures that the soap eventually ends up getting stuck to the impeller grates enabling it to retain the smell for longer. It also ensures that the disinfectant properties in soap present end up aiding the garbage disposal keep clean.

Bleach

People have reported good progress using mild bleach, roman cleanser, or slightly scented bleach poured down the garbage disposal along with running cold water. It will help kill the smells along with dislodging any trapped particles of food. Mostly because of the corrosive nature of the materials used and the cold water dilution technique, one would remove the smell from their garbage disposal. Bleach also has disinfectant properties, along with being highly reactive. Being highly reactive enables bleach to react with any materials in the drain and the impeller/blades, which would make it look and smell cleaner. It allows you to keep your garbage disposal clean efficiently.

It may not be the first option because of the multiple kinds of bleaches available in the market. Secondly, the variety of materials used in some bleaches might end up damaging the drain or the blades/impellers. The only other downside to using bleach is that it will harden grease in your drain lines and is very acidic. It will also technically be responsible for killing the bacteria, which is considered necessary in your septic holding tank. It is why it is not a good idea because it ends up making your septic system less effective.

Clean the Lid

While it may seem extremely obvious, we cannot say it enough, and therefore we have to mention this one too. One should always clean the top of the garbage disposal lid with soap or other materials, ensuring no excess material has stuck to the cover. Making sure of this is considered very important and crucial in keeping the garbage disposal clean. It is so because it would make the smell a lot more vile than it would have been otherwise. Using water and a brush to remove food particles that lodged between the edges. It would be the ideal thing to do here, mostly because it would be hard to get out directly and not be easy.

Brush Clean

You must be careful enough to ensure you have unplugged and disconnected the garbage disposal unit before attempting to put your hand or a tool down the garbage disposal drain. Take both precautions as you can never be too careful, and accidents don’t tend to announce themselves. Saving your arm is worth the extra effort. It might sound easy, but there are specific ways to keep your garbage disposal cleanusing a dish brush or wire brush to clean inside; the garbage disposal unit matters a lot here as this would make sure the scrubbers and brushes are deep enough to clean whatever they can. What matters here more would be the type of machine you have—this, as well as how you aim to approach manual cleaning. If you roughhouse with the device, it will break and cost you a lot of money to repair or replace. It is always smarter to check out the user manual and the company website to ensure whatever you do does not damage the equipment making it impossible for you to keep your garbage disposal clean.

Understanding your equipment and device here is imperative as it would ensure you better clean your machine and make it simpler to clean your machine. For example, one can always use a brush to clean blades but using the same for the impeller would be stupid. Therefore it would be best to use the right materials and tools to address suitable machines etc.

Always turn the water on before you run the disposal, keep the water running as long as the removal is on, and run the water for at least five seconds after turning the disposal off. It ensures that you won’t have to deodorize your garbage disposal every time this happens, as the garbage disposal would need liquids to get rid of solid food and refuse.

How To Keep Garbage Disposal Clean Regularly? By Following This As A Standard Practice.

Another essential thing to remember when you want to keep your garbage disposal clean is to keep the blades clean this would make sure you never need to be as tired and exhausted to keep your garbage disposal clean. You can do this by running roughage through the disposal every couple of days to clean your garbage disposal. As long as it gets its almost daily “Roughage,” it’s good to go and in fine working condition. Right hard materials that can clean the blades include:

• Eggshells
• Small fruit pits, such as cherry pits
• Bones
• Ice cubes

And the best way to avoid disposal repairs you bring on yourself is to prevent clog-producing usage and adequately maintaining your disposal. It really could not be simpler. 

Avoid the Following to Prevent the Garbage Disposal Drain Clogs:
There are a few things to avoid using your sink and garbage disposal to help reduce the chances of clogs or slow draining waste lines. These materials tend to hinder your mission to keep your garbage disposal clean.

• Do not grind up potato peelings with your garbage disposal unit. They will form a starchy paste similar to mashed potatoes when ground up and will surely clog your drain. It will be like garbage disposal equivalent to quicksand or the Chinese finger cuffs applied to an angry hulking person who would get violent at any excuse. It would not help you to keep your garbage disposal clean.
• Do not grind up banana peels as the excess amounts of potassium in the peels tends to react oddly to pressure. These become a very similar kind of paste, creating the same problem as the potato peels do. The only difference is that they also add stringy fibers to the mix, which is horrible and not an excellent step to keep the garbage disposal clean.
• Please do not put any soluble materials there with water since there is a necessity to use the water’s garbage disposal. It would be very ill-advised to use the garbage disposal to throw away soluble like coffee beans. It would create a paste in the garbage disposal unit, making it challenging to drain materials.
• BAD IDEA ALERT
  Do not put ground glass in your disposal to ‘clean’ it. It will not sharpen the disposer’s cutting blades; it will not clean your drain pipes and will not quickly drain.

Do the Following to Maintain a Clean, Fresh Disposal:

• Avoid vigorous or impactful odors in the first place. You can do this by also treating your disposal every month with a combination of a couple of handfuls of baking soda and a half cup of vinegar. Let that set in the disposal hopper with the unit turned off. It would ensure the baking soda clings on to every bit of drain in its path. It ends up enabling the vinegar to clean up the drain and make it easy for people to see the cleaning process, too, as the drain starts to bubble once you add the vinegar. It would allow you to keep your garbage disposal clean for longer.
• After it’s done foaming, rinse it down the drain with hot running water. Be careful to use only hot water to ensure that the reactive materials don’t get stuck on to the side to react later.
• Keeping your garbage disposal clean is easy; you can help by regularly grinding up pieces of lemon or orange peel and ice cubes, which would ice wash all the parts of the garbage disposal unit.
• Another thing you can do here is to use food essences like vanilla and chocolate to create an olfactory kitchen theme. Can mix it into the baking soda before putting it in the drain.

Do the Following to Maintain a Clog-Free Disposal:

• Use as much as possible of the element of life!!! Yes!! Water! The simplest way to keep garbage disposal clean is to make sure you regularly flush the disposal with plenty of water. It is especially true when grinding up food waste and then for 30 seconds afterward to ensure everything washes properly.
• Then occasionally keep your garbage disposal clean by regularly grinding up pieces of lemon or orange peel and ice cubes. These are good for your garbage disposal. These materials allow for enough breakage inside the device that the breakage’s explosive nature enables the particles to fly around inside. It makes sure that all the debris knocked out of places may lodge it. It is allowing you to keep your garbage disposal better clean.
• Use dishwashing detergents that de-grease your dishes. Grease is the ‘glue’ that holds bacteria causing odors in your drain pipes and adds to the likelihood of the slow draining clogs you want to avoid to keep your garbage disposal clean.
• Avoid grinding up potato peelings, banana peels, coffee grounds, or eggshells as described above as this would only hinder your efforts to keep your garbage disposal clean.

By following these simple tips, you will help keep your garbage disposal trouble-free, sanitary, and clean smelling!