2y ago

Do garburators put excess strain on waste management?

I feel in the suburbs where you have cookie cutter houses that all have garburators it must add a little bit of load. How does it compare to municipally run composting?

30 comments

What’s a garburstor?
- I assume it's a garbage disposal, I've never heard the term either though.
  
  I hadn't heard the term either but wikipedia says you're correct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_disposal_unit
TIL that garburator is a regional term.
But considering NYC apparently banned them for several years until it was found that they didn't damage the sewer system, probably not.
- Interesting. I had no idea that they banned it. I guess it means my question wasn't as silly as I thought
  
  The sub exists for a reason, no such thing as a stupid question when it is legitimately in the pursuit of knowledge, no matter how trivial the knowledge may seem.
It kinda varies depending on the citys municipal system. Wastewater systems are built with this in mind so they usually have a few different means of using this waste as energy. Some plants have methods to create CNG from the organic matter. Most plants collect the organics, treat it and use it in agriculture as fertilizer.
Yes they do.more solids to filter out costs money. Someone has to pay for it....
- You're not supposed to put extra stuff down the drain. It's supposed to catch the incidental food waste stuck to platea that would otherwise go down whole.
They shouldn't, it is just breaking up the material earlier. I imagine if people went out of their way to use it more it could make things worse but I would bet on the units dying before it made a difference. Chances are you have one on your block already if it a built up area, just underground where you cant see it.
Already bigger apartment buildings are having to install them.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-31/the-environmental-case-for-the-garbage-disposal]
(discussion of environmental impact of in-sink garbage disposal units)
Not bad, because you have to compare it to the environmental cost of moving the waste somewhere in a truck. If you can compost it at home and use the compost obviously that's better.
Composting is where it's at.

30 comments