I feel in the suburbs where you have cookie cutter houses that all have garburators it must add a little bit of load. How does it compare to municipally run composting?
What’s a garburstor?
I assume it’s a garbage disposal, I’ve never heard the term either though.
I hadn’t heard the term either but wikipedia says you’re correct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_disposal_unit
It’s what we call them in Canada!
Of course it is. You guys are cute.
I knew this because of ‘How I met your mother’!
Apparently it’s a Canadian term
Follow up question, does WM do sewage in Canada? Here they just pick up trash cans/recycling.
I’m honestly not sure. I used the term because I wasn’t sure if black and grey water are always treated the same so I wasn’t sure if sewage treatment would fit. I think wastewater is the general term.
I think it’s usually two separate services both owned typically by the city.
I have never heard garbage disposal called that before
As a Canadian, I’ve never heard it called a Garbage Disposal before. Garbage disposal here is done by two guys and a truck once a week.
Garbage disposal is really not a very intuitive name. Always confused me as a kid. I like “garbeurator” but I also had no idea what it meant when I saw it. We need an objectively transparent name for these things! “In-sink masticator?”
One of the popular brands is the insinkerator. I always thought that was a good name for it.
For a long time as a kid I thought those were In-sink Erators, and that an Erator was something that blended garbage.
I distinctly remember telling a plumber my parents had called “I think its the erator” and him just nodding and smiling 😅
Canadians have garbage cans. USians have trash cans. Just the way it is…
Per Wikipedia They are in 3% of Canadian homes, and 50% of American homes.
I’ve got all the wiring etc. for one, but chose not to install, opting for municipal composting instead. The odd time that I need to macerate, I just run stuff through my blender.
Municipal composting is great. For anyone with a yard, home composting is the new hotness.
TIL that garburator is a regional term.
But considering NYC apparently banned them for several years until it was found that they didn’t damage the sewer system, probably not.
Interesting. I had no idea that they banned it. I guess it means my question wasn’t as silly as I thought
The sub exists for a reason, no such thing as a stupid question when it is legitimately in the pursuit of knowledge, no matter how trivial the knowledge may seem.
It kinda varies depending on the citys municipal system. Wastewater systems are built with this in mind so they usually have a few different means of using this waste as energy. Some plants have methods to create CNG from the organic matter. Most plants collect the organics, treat it and use it in agriculture as fertilizer.
Composting is where it’s at.
They shouldn’t, it is just breaking up the material earlier. I imagine if people went out of their way to use it more it could make things worse but I would bet on the units dying before it made a difference. Chances are you have one on your block already if it a built up area, just underground where you cant see it.
Already bigger apartment buildings are having to install them.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-31/the-environmental-case-for-the-garbage-disposal]
(discussion of environmental impact of in-sink garbage disposal units)
Not bad, because you have to compare it to the environmental cost of moving the waste somewhere in a truck. If you can compost it at home and use the compost obviously that’s better.
