In Sink Erator Food Waste Disposal Unit

...going to be talking rubbish in this op. That’s ‘about’ rubbish not ‘a load’ of rubbish, in case you were wondering.

~*~*~ Do You Need One of These? ~*~*~

So, how many of you have a kitchen bin that should be labelled ‘biological hazard’ ? Ah yes, I see a few hands there……..well I’m about to tell you of a product that will solve all those nasty little problems.

You know the ones I mean, like who’s going ...
...out of the minute hole in the bag, without staining the quarry tiles?

The answer is to get yourself an ‘In-Sink-Erator’. That’s a food waste disposal unit, in plain English.

I first came across this really neat kitchen gadget in the USA. We’d hired a villa in Kissimmee for a few weeks and it came equipped with all the mod cons including this rather menacing looking drain in the kitchen sink. It was very easy to operate, ... more

Right, I’m going to be talking rubbish in this op. That’s ‘about’ rubbish not ‘a load’ of rubbish, in case you were wondering.

~*~*~ Do You Need One of These? ~*~*~

So, how many of you have a kitchen bin that should be labelled ‘biological hazard’ ? Ah yes, I see a few hands there……..well I’m about to tell you of a product that will solve all those nasty little problems.

You know the ones I mean, like who’s going to cart the fetid, steaming bin bag out to the dustbin before it walks there on it’s own, or how do you clean up the liquid teabags, chicken tikka masala and soggy weetabix that’s oozed out of the minute hole in the bag, without staining the quarry tiles?

The answer is to get yourself an ‘In-Sink-Erator’. That’s a food waste disposal unit, in plain English.

I first came across this really neat kitchen gadget in the USA. We’d hired a villa in Kissimmee for a few weeks and it came equipped with all the mod cons including this rather menacing looking drain in the kitchen sink. It was very easy to operate, you chucked in all the waste food, put on the lid, turned on the tap and pressed a button and ‘hey presto’ the waste was all nicely chewed up and flushed away.

~*~*~ About Ours and Some Technical Stuff ~*~*~

Last year we decided to get one for our house in the UK. There wasn’t much of a choice as our local builder’s merchant cum kitchen and bathroom sales room only sold one make. The ‘In-Sink-Erator. We bought Model 65 for a sale price of about £100.

This was a continuous feed waste disposer, it has a stainless steel ‘shredding ring’ inside and is recommended for a large family. There are no spinning blades in these disposers, they work by grinding the waste food into particles and then sieving it out in suspension through the drainage pipes.

The term ‘continuous feed’ just means that you turn it on, and scrape in the waste in a continuous stream until you’ve finished. You can buy a model called a ’batch feeder’; in this case you would scrape in all the waste until the unit is full and then turn it on. The disadvantage of this is it’s quite fiddly if you have a large amount of stuff to get rid of.

We brought the unit home and fitted it into our 1 ½ sink unit. It went into the smaller sink section and fitted the plughole very snugly. You do have to make sure you’re your sink is robust enough to stand the weight and vibrations given off. There is also an ‘air’ powered button that needs to be fixed somewhere on the work surface. Our sink had a spare tap hole conveniently located on the opposite side to the existing taps, so this is where we fitted the ‘air’ switch. Mind you, this is probably not the best place as water gets into the plastic tube underneath and the switch stops working. You get the choice of either a chrome button or a white one so it can be adapted to suit your sink.

Basically the ‘air’ switch is a pump type switch that pushes air along a plastic tube running under the sink units, which then activates the power. You can also wire it up to an electrical switch on the wall.

The unit also comes with fairly comprehensive fitting instructions and my husband managed to get it fitted with little trouble. You can connect it up to the dishwasher so that the wastewater will flush through the unit, instead of using clean tap water all the time.

~*~*~ Safety, or How Not To Lose Your Fingers ~*~*~

Last but not least, there are some fairly comprehensive safety guidelines. The unit is to be used for the disposal of normal household food waste only, so I guess that putting Ginger’s latest breakfast mouse in there is a no-no. You shouldn’t put bleach, glass, china, large bones, metal, corn cobs, hot liquids or oyster shells into it. Bleach will rust the stainless steel grinding rings. Keep the lid on so you don’t lose your wedding ring or the best silver spoons down the grinder. Do not insert hands or fingers into the disposer, doh!

~*~*~ Getting the Thing to Work Properly ~*~*~

It’s simple to operate, just

1. Turn on the tap,
2. Press ‘air’ switch,
3. Pour in food and grind away,
4. Turn off switch and run water for 15 seconds to clear the drain pipe.

They also recommend that you grind small bones or fruit stones every now and then to clean the grinder. You can also grind the occasional orange, lemon or lime and this makes it smell nice!

To clean the grinder you should disconnect it from the power and scrub out the inside with a scouring pad. Then mix some baking soda with warm water and use this to flush the particles out of the unit.

~*~*~ What We Really Think About It ~*~*~

The website would have you believe that these are the world’s most reliable waste disposal units. We have found that this is probably true. Although we bought one of the more expensive models, they all come with a ‘no-quibbles’ warranty for between 2 and 5 years, depending on which model you buy. They are virtually bomb proof and are fairly easy to unblock if you get into trouble, although having said that we have just had the ‘air’ switch replaced this afternoon.

I was all prepared to have to nip out to the spares stockists, about 12 miles away to pick up my new ‘air’ switch when I received a phone call. It was the spares man asking if it would be convenient to call round in the afternoon to fit the new switch. Mmmmmm, and charge me £40 in the process? But no, my fears were unfounded. Apparently the company insists that all replacements and repairs are carried out by a qualified agent, no matter how minor. This costs you absolutely nothing as long as the unit is still under warranty. So, he popped round, took all of 40 seconds to fit the switch, filled in some paperwork and was on his way. I was very impressed by the service and the promise of instant help, should I need, it in the future.

The In-Sink-Erator has been great! No more smelly bins or hazardous food waste going back into the food chain and there’s less of our rubbish filling up the landfill sites. We can now retrieve ‘lost’ things from the kitchen rubbish without having to decontaminate them, (I have lost about 100 teaspoons through my 2 yr old daughter throwing her empty yoghurt pot plus spoon into the bin) and the utility room is generally a much more pleasant place to be! It can cope with almost all our food waste, with the exception of corn cobs, it’s fairly quiet when running and easy to maintain. It will certainly crush your nuts!

The In-Sink-Erator website can be found at

www.insinkerator.com

This is an American oriented site so you can’t find a UK stockist from it. However a general web search for In-Sink-Erator will throw up some useful UK sites.

So, yes, I do recommend this product.
Thanks for reading.

 

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