Top Five Reasons to Install a Garbage Disposal Now

1. Your sink repeatedly gets clogged with large pieces of food. If you have kids, there is no escaping this fact. No matter how many times you tell them, your kids will dump food waste into the drain and the kitchen sink will get clogged. Even a strainer over the drain will not deter this.

2. You will reduce the amount of trash your family produces by installing a high performing garbage disposal. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, trash production in the US has almost tripled since 1960. In 2010, Americans generated approximately 250 million tons of trash.

3. You will have a cleaner kitchen by using a disposal. Garbage disposals are really a necessity in today’s modern kitchen. They are a great solution for getting rid of large pieces of food waste. A garbage disposal quickly turns large chunks of food into smaller pieces which drain down the pipes easily.

To clean the grinders or blades, pour two cups of ice into the disposal and add a cup of vinegar. Run cold water as you turn the disposal on for five to ten seconds. The ice will clean any sludge or food particles off the blades and the vinegar will freshen the sink.

4. They are very simple to install. One review site says the Waste King 8000 Legend Series can be installed within 20 minutes because of its EZ Mount system. If you have never installed a garbage disposal, expect installation to take a bit longer. I would say the installation can take up to two hours.

5. More environmentally responsible than transporting food waste to landfills By reducing the amount of bagged trash at the curb you help to cut down on greenhouse gases because the trash trucks are carrying less waste off to the landfill. You can feel good about helping the environment.

Garbage disposals do not use much water and cost very little in terms of the amount of electricity they require to operate. Disposer us only about 1 percent or less of a family's total water consumption. On average, the garbage disposal uses less than fifty cents per year of electricity. This seems extremely low but makes sense if you think about how little you use the disposal compared to other household appliances, like a refrigerator or dryer.

Recently, I was comparing garbage disposals on Amazons. For about the same price, you can get a Waste King Legend Series 8000 with a 1.0 hp or the InSinkerator Badger5 which has 1/2 hp motor.

Waste King L-8000 Legend Series 1.0 Horsepower Continuous Feed Disposal System (the #1 best selling garbage disposal on Amazon) sells for $124.99 plus shipping.

The InSinkerator Badger 5XP 3/4 Horsepower is $120.98 on Amazon. That's basically a more powerful motor on the Waste King for about the same price. Plus, if you check out Consumer Reports, the Waste King has the highest rating. Plus, the lifetime warranty, and it's really a no brainer.

Our new house came with a standard InSinkerator garbage disposal. It is a bit loud when running, but once its useful life is over, I will be replacing it with the Waste King Legend 8000 Series. Let's see if I can install it in under twenty minutes.