The ‘coffee grounds down the drain’ thing is a household hint that ain’t true. It’s been around for years and was touted as a way to clean the pipes which assumed that the grounds would act in a scouring manner. In fact, they tend to mix with such things as grease, oil and soap residue to form a solid.
You should never put animal products into compost, they take much longer to decay and will create a very foul odor.
Coffee grounds in the flower garden is an old trick, but I don’t know how beneficial it really is. My granny did it decades ago, egg shells too.
Lye based drain cleaners are dangerous and not very effective. If they don’t work and you need to follow up w/ mechanical methods, the lye can be a burning hazard. Plumbers dislike the practice as they are the ones who often end up dealing w/ the aftermath.
I have a reusable coffee filter. When I dump the grounds, quite a bit sticks to the sides, even when I tap them. Am I destroying my kitchen drain by rinsing the rest down it?
Probably not, a small amount, well flushed w/ water isn’t going to be a problem, all else being equal; ie: well flowing drain w/ regular use and you aren’t doing it a couple dozen times a day
Compost piles are for raw vegetable matter only. Definatly no meats but also no cooked vegetables (beans, soups…ect). The city I live in occasionally puts a notice in our sanitation bill saying anything other than raw vegetable matter can attract mice and rats for miles. And the smell can be horrible.
Source: My parents :dubious:
You’ll get rats.
I can understand a sanitation department making a blanket statement along these lines…but does coffee really attract vermin?
My response was to
I would think coffee grounds would be ok in a compost pile. But if you notice any rats running aound all hyped up with a caffine buzz, you might start just throwing the grounds in the trash.
I think the idea is you’ll get a bar of soap with its mold being the inside of the pipe. In other words, a nice, thick, solid clog.
Exactly. If you’ve ever seen a removed pipe with nasty green-black soap inside it, you’ll understand.
Think about what happens if you put lye down the drain and it doesn’t work. Your pipes will be full of lye, which will be a hazard if you need to clean out the drain mechanically (e.g. with a snake or by taking the trap apart).
Here’s a method for clearing drains that’s worked for me: get the water out of the sink, then pour dishwashing detergent (the type used with dishwashing machines) down the drain, followed by a bit pot of boiling water. The combination of detergent and hot water will break apart almost any clog.
FWIW I just had to remove the trap under my sink to do a repair. I installed this trap, the dirty arm* and new plumbing to the main stack in 1994. So everything is 123 years old. I dump coffee grounds in my sink about 50% of the time, and wash it down with a fair amount of water.
There was zero build up in the plastic trap and maybe 1/8" of build up on the bottom of the 1.5" dirty arm pipe.
I am not going to get overly excited about coffee grounds in my disposal. At the rate stuff is building up, I will be long dead and forgotten before it becomes an issue.
Disclaimer: I have a top of the line garbage disposal, and I don’t scrimp on the water when I use it. I don’t dump grease down the disposer. Did I mention I use lots of water?
*A dirty arm is the horizontal pipe run from the sink trap into the wall.
Dood… I’ll let you off easy, because you’re a guest and can’t search. Not that ignorance is any excuse!!!
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=417434&highlight=coffee+grounds+sink
(stumps off grumpily) (where’s the love?)