Well, now that you’ve mentioned it here, your county might find out! 
It’s all cool, nothing illegal going on. Honey wagon guy does his inspection as mandated by the county. If the tank needs pumping or the system needs other maintenance he does it. He explains the what and why and does his thing, I pay him, he signs the paperwork and submits it to the county for me.
As far as I know, garbage disposals are legal here, but it’s common knowledge they not recommended with septic systems. The one we have came with the house but I wouldn’t have spec’d one if I were building the house. I’ve been using it since we moved here in 2006 and have never had a problem with the disposal or the septic.
We have a four legged garbage disposal too. She’ll eat anything, even stuff she’s not supposed to have so we need to keep an eye on her. She’s cuter than she is smart.
My plumber husband warns against doing this with any particles bigger than applesauce.
If I have potentially smelly garbage (say fish wrappings) they go in the freezer until the garbage is full.
She may not want to compost or be able to, but if she just puts the food scraps in a separate bin, the rest of the trash will be dry and smell free. I do that, though I don’t have easy access to a compost facility. The little bag with food scraps smells after a few days, so I dispose of that while the regular trash is only changed after a couple of weeks or more.
Yes but he also “upgraded” it (moar power!) such that it required a pull-cord to start, akin to a lawn mower or chainsaw. Hilarious, but none too practical if you ask me.
I don’t think that practical was ever in Tim’s mind when he “upgraded” anything. Generally people were lucky if it wasn’t outright dangerous.
So this Tim fellow made a real bass(wood)-o-matic. Tres cool!!
Gallagher would be so proud.
This is my situation too, and we do what you do. Garbage disposal is for the tiny bits only, larger foodstuffs go in the trash and get hauled to the township ̶d̶u̶m̶p̶ recycling center. Our septic system has remained functional over the decades, with inspection every 3 years.
Composting is not real feasible given the large volume of wild animals including deer, coyotes, mink, skunks, opossum, raccoons, squirrels, and the occasional bear wandering through. The combined menagerie has broken into local compost bins constantly.
I’d leave that to the answer of a (spousal) expert
Personally, I keep all large meaty scraps in a poultry or ‘beef’ bone bag for future stock purposes, and when I do a batch, it goes in the trash, not the disposal. Larger chunks of veggie waste goes in the trash, although the smallest scraps that I don’t catch go in the disposal. I find though that the odor is most likely to come from meat residue rather than veggies.
Since I already buy Costco sized Arm & Hammer for cleaning though, it’s trivial to put a dash of that in the disposal or trash can if I have something likely to be stinky - the trays and drip absorbers that come with some of the meat products at the store (I do try to stay away from them, but still end up with a few) are the worst offenders.
Is a septic system unable to process a moderate amount of ground up food scraps?
Change “mink” to “rats” and that’s our situation.
I only use the garbage disposal for smallest scraps that get stuck on the dishes, so it only gets used a couple of times a week. Things like cat foot that sticks to the bowels is the major item I send down the disposal, and then I make sure to run the water for for the 20-30 seconds recommended to send it on its merry way, definitely don’t want that stuff hanging in my pipes.
Like any tool it needs to be used properly and is not a cure all for all scarps. And of course, grease never goes down the sink.
i reuse zip lock bags for food scraps (also for cat litter, as they have stopped plastic bags in stores). would that work?
My septic expert (Howie has been our expert for nearly 4 decades, has repaired and replaced systems for me on our main house plus other properties during that time, and kept my system running through floods, power failures, mound failures, etc) tells me that ideally only water, feces, urine and toilet paper should go into our system. Other objects reduce the system’s lifetime and make it prone to other problems. So we minimize kitchen waste as much as possible. We have limited feasible space for our tank and mound system, and severe failure would mean replacing it with a holding tank that would need pumping out regularly. I do not want that.
I’m used to no toilet paper in the toilet while in the Caribbean. I mentioned once to my gf how much healthier that would be for our septic system but she was not at all interested.
I don’t dispute this at all, but I still don’t completely understand why. I guess feces are more easily eaten by bacteria than undigested food bits.
Probably “slippage”. Septic systems will get some undigestible stuff in them via feces, but if you add food remnants via the garbage disposal, the overall burden of stuff not broken down by bacteria, etc (bone, cartilage, tendons, certain fiber, eggshells, nutshells) will increase, adding strain to system. And we’re in it for the long haul, I want my system lasting for decades and decades.
Me too! We just had to completely install a new system to move the drain field away from the shoreline (and replace 1930 era holding tanks). We now pump our sewage up the hillside about 100 feet. I will certainly do what we can to make sure the system outlives me and my wife.
I was always told that if it CAN go into the garbage rather than the disposal, then it SHOULD. Egg shells, coffee grounds in the garbage. Wet stuff from dinner plates in the disposal.
I am in Sacramento. We now have the food waste containers with bio-degradable bags that go in the green waste every week.
From the California government web site:
- 56% of biosolids from wastewater treatment are applied to land as a soil amendment and fertilizer
- 19% was used a daily/final cover at landfills
- 13% was disposed in landfill
- 3% to surface disposal
- 3% to incineration
This was 2013 data. I found 2014 data which showed 9% going to landfill disposal, and I’m not sure what has happened since. But it’s probably a safe assumption that they have continued to divert more from landfills over the last 8 year.
So in terms of landfill volume and methane waste, the garbage disposal is better. In terms of water usage and your plumbing system, the trash is better. For power usage and carbon footprint, you could probably manipulate all the different factors to make it show what you want.