Posted on 03/09/2008 8:11:49 AM PDT by Libloather
City bans garbage disposal units
Residents of Raleigh, N.C., face stiff penalties if they install garbage disposal units in their kitchen sinks or repair existing ones if they break.
The City Council approved the ban on Wednesday, the Raleigh Chronicle reports. The ordinance includes a fine of up to $25,000 a day.
Officials said that anyone caught with an illegal disposal unit could also face a lifetime ban on getting city water. The ban covers several municipalities around Raleigh.
The garbage disposal units, which grind up leftover food and flush it into the sewer system, lead to pipes clogged with grease. That can lead to sewage overflowing into streams or ponds.
Raleigh residents are urged to collect grease in an old can or jar, allow it to harden and put it in the trash.
Any chance those “Ghost Hunter” guys might fall back on their first line of work (roto-rooter business) and solve this problem permanently? They can always be told mysterious lights and sounds are being seen in the sewers!! ;-)
My guess is that Raleigh has some very-expensive to fix problems with their piping and has had problems that are due to clumps of greasy waste that they have identified has being sourced to garbage disposals. So they have been shrewd and set a extravagantly steep fine on installed units as a PR stunt. What a marvelous way to get folks thinking about what they dump down them! Seems to have some potency judging by this thread.
Garbage disposals were a bad idea from the beginning. People that have them, if they are smart, don’t use them for anything but what’s trimmed off their fresh veggies before cooking them.
You think that’s worth having a disposal for?
Probably via building permits. I'd guess that the plumbing inspections should note that there are sink garbage disposals.
And then also a process of neighborhood investigation after a clogging incident in a public pipe.
The operative word being YET.........
Just cardboard, glass, cans, magazines, news papers.
We don't have laws on any of it, but I do try to do my part :) What cardboard I don't use for patterns goes into to the burn pile, newspapers get used in the woodstove and for making seed starter pots, cans get saved because they fetch 50cents a pound, mags either get passed on to friends or tossed in the burn pile and I generally find other uses for jars either for food storage, seed storage, craft storage, etc........what I don't use gets tossed in the trash.
But I'm not being a greenie over these things, I do them because A) I'm cheap and B) I hate hauling trash to the greenbox and try to minimize the number of trips I have to make. (IOW, I'm lazy)
Isn't that essentially what they've done? Fine, tax, it's all the same. Just consider it a $9,125,000 annual tax. Or $9,150,000 this year, since there are 366 days. Seems reasonable to me.
:-)
“To many people take the name dispos-all to literally. “
I have a small “art deco” home built in 1938 and it is pretty much “stock”. I have not had a garbage disposal for over 30 years and have a very large single sink which I love. I never put grease down my sink and I have never needed a plumber in all these years. It is just what I am used to.
I did have a Rainsoft Conditioning Unit installed in 1985 but knew not to put it outside because I have just been waiting for soft water units to be outlawed.
My boyfriend and I have had this ongoing argument on whether to let grease go down the drain with cold water or hot water. All the websites say hot hot water but it seems that that would coat the pipes with the grease. If you use cold water the grease/fat would congeal and pass thru the pipes. Which one of us is right?
I’m trying to figure out if you’re serious; the grease problem for drains is one of poor choices as to what is suitable for in-sink disposal and what needs a separate collection and disposal method.
We may be the only ones here in my family who routinely scrape and save in a grocery store plastic bag plate scraps, pan scraps and leftover gravies and sauces which is then frozen until trash day.
This solves drain problems as well as trash can overturning by stray animals.
Grease in your wastelines rarely make it much farther than the stand pipe to which an ordinary P-trap is plumbed at the wall under the sink; 90% of kitchen drain problems trace the plug to this point and can be simply cleaned with hand tools.
A good practice to follow is to flush the drains with baking soda followed by white vinegar once each month.
Set a limit on stool size per flush, per day and per billing period.
In a round-a-bout way, I think this actually is the real issue Raleigh is addressing. Their sewer treatment systems have to handle both solids and liquids to EPA specifications, and disposing of the solids is more costly, especially as EPA ratchets up the regulations. Banning garbage disposals won't do a thing to keep grease out of the system, but it will reduce the amount of solids they have to deal with. They may be trying to put off rebuilding their waste treatment facilities to meet ever-expanding EPA standards...
If there is anything that should be banned it is parking lots at a gym.
Got your own Brownfield going on, eh?
In the Bay area we have had droughts and experienced the same thing. Use less the utility makes less so they charge more to sustain their bureaucracy rather than trying to cut back on their costs. The prime directive of a bureaucracy is to sustain itself and grow. Since they based your ration amount on usage in non-drought years we tried to use more water in those times. I wonder if you have anyone from California on the governing board of your water utility
I still wouldn't ban them or restrict the use of them.
Liberals don't give friendly advice. They give orders. We are going to have to physically drive them out of this country one day.
How will they know whether you bought one in another state?
Will they start registering disposals?
Will you have to show id to buy one?
Will you need a permit to buy one?
If this keeps up in fifty years we’ll need a permit to get out of bed.
not that many southerners in raleigh
In 10 years, it’ll probably be the norm and everyone will accept it.
Cold.
“How do I go about getting a ban on liberals?”
Garbage disposals are for garbage...
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