Cleaning: Garbage Disposal Care

While standing over the sink washing your hands, washing dishes, or preparing dinner, have you ever experienced the awful, rancid smell that can accompany the luxury of having a garbage disposal?  Food wastes and greases can remain inside your garbage disposal producing noxious fumes that can make one want to hurl their recently consumed biscuits and gravy or  unless you follow a routine for keeping them clean. 

One thing that you should definitely know about using a garbage disposal is that it should never be run without turning on the water first.  Additionally, it turns out that using cold water is best for your disposal.  Hot water may cause greases to heat up and clog parts of your disposal, while cold water causes the grease to solidify allowing the disposal to do its job and remove these harmful agents. 

To rid the disposal of that awful smell, you can put a few drops of your dish liquid in, turn on the water, then the power to the disposal and allow it to run for a minute or two.  However, I have found that my way of not only cleaning, but freshening the garbage disposal is the way to go.

Remember the recipe from Monday's blog?  One ingredient was fresh-squeezed lemon juice (which I always recommend over the store-bought version).  After preparing a large amount of lemon juice for a lemonade I was concocting, I wondered what to do with all of the lemon rinds that were left over.  The frugal Catholic in me kicked into gear and I threw one of the lemon rinds into the disposal and ground it up wafting wonderful scents of citrus around my kitchen.  But I took it one step further.  I placed the rest of the rinds in a Rubbermaid container and placed them in the freezer.

Now, once a week, or so, I open the container and toss one of those rinds in my disposal.  Not only

does it smell great, but the acids from the lemons helps to clean the gunk (technical plumbing term) from my disposal.  I'm literally preventing myself from pouring money down the drain by wasting my dish liquid; I am using something that would have been thrown away! 

If you try this tip out in your Southern home, let me know what you think.  Or, if  you have any other frugal garbage disposal cleaning tips, let me know!  Until next time, have a Great Southern Day!