What CAN and what CANNOT go in your garbage disposal.

Do you live in an apartment or home with a garbage disposal? While they may be amazing, garbage disposals are not the cookie monsters of the sink, devouring everything in sight. Putting the wrong thing down the garbage disposal will lead to odors at best, and major repairs at worst. So be careful what you feed it, and listen to your favorite maintenance man when he tells you "that thing don't need no grease."

Big time no-no's:
grease, fat, oil, butter
chicken bones, fish bones, eggshells
coffee grounds
expandable foods like pasta and rice
non-food items

So what do you do with the items listed above? Two words: trash can. Obviously, something like hot grease will melt a trash bag so you will need to let that cool before discarding, but all of those things listed above? They need to go in the garbage, not the sink. 

Items that CAN go in the garbage disposal:
​small bits of soft food
dish soap
cool water

One more quick and helpful tip: use the blue stuff. I'm not trying to tell you what brands to buy, but my plumber once told me, the wrong dish soap will gunk up your sink. Dish soap should be bought to clean dishes, break down food particles, and disinfect spaces, not soften your hands. The dish soaps with moisturizing and nourishing properties build up in the pipes below. Using a good, old fashioned, regular dish soap like Dawn will help break up any SMALL tidbits of grease and grime that escape down the drain occasionally.