Insinkerator - waste disposal unit

Jose1

Looking for some feedback. Has anyone fitted one of these or similar?

corkgsxr

Brilliant get a big a hp as you can

Jose1

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind!

Did you require a new sink or were you able to fit it to your old one?

corkgsxr

Jose1 wrote: »

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind!

Did you require a new sink or were you able to fit it to your old one?

I fitted a few. Dont have one myself but iv heard plenty of feedback

DGOBS

AFAIK the councils have banned these, something to do with our treatment plants or sewers not able to cope with them? (don't shoot the messenger!!)

Suppose if you look at the huge grease ball that blocked up the huge London sewers last week, you can understand why, those sewers are 20ft wide I believe!
Called a Fatberg...lol

http://www.irishexaminer.com/world/15-tonne-fatberg-removed-from-london-sewer-239097.html

Jose1

Thanks for the info.

Yeah, I've read about Councils banning of these units. How on earth do they intend to police it? AFAIK millions of these units are installed in US homes without any real problems.

As a law abiding citizen I don't want to flaunt the law so to offset this I have read that there is a separate system which can be attached to sort this problem out, but don't really know much about it.

Any further info would be most welcome.

Highways

Jose1 wrote: »

Thanks for the info.

Yeah, I've read about Councils banning of these units. How on earth do they intend to police it? AFAIK millions of these units are installed in US homes without any real problems.

As a law abiding citizen I don't want to flaunt the law so to offset this I have read that there is a separate system which can be attached to sort this problem out, but don't really know much about it.

Any further info would be most welcome.

First off, let me declare an interest in food waste disposers (FWDs) though not the brand Insinkerator.
Yes the councils don't like them but that’s down to a lack of understanding as to what FWDs are for. FWDs are not responsible for sewer blockages such as the one above. FWDs are designed to grind food waste into tiny particles so it can flow with the other organic sewer waste to the local treatment plant where it's turned into fertiliser and if the treatment plant has Anaerobic Digesters(Dublin, Waterford to name but 2 cities with AD), the Methane gas produced is reused for heat and electricity. So FWDs are actually eco-friendly and actually endorsed as such in many countries, including the US.
You don't need a FWD to pour fat down your sink, you just need to be thick. The fatball's such as DGOBS' one above are invariable caused by stupid kitchen staff or bylaw-flouting management at local hotels/restaurants illegally pouring fat, oil and grease(FOG) down the drain, not homeowners using FWDs. Also, who puts wipes down a waste disposer?? Thick people flush all sorts of stuff down the toilet which they shouldn't but you don't hear council engineer's calling for toilets to be banned.
There have been dozens of scientific studies using empirical research, carried out all over the world investigating FWDs and all have either unreservedly endorsed their use or given qualified endorsement subject to more extensive study; http://www.food-waste-disposer.org.uk/the-science
http://www.theguardian.com/money/200...nethicalliving
Surahammar Sweden has a 15 year study with mass FWD usage and NO sewer or treatment plant problems; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-6593.2010.00238.x/abstract
The only study that bucked the trend was the desktop study commissioned here in Ireland by the EPA which looked at all the existing international research and came to the opposite conclusion, thus giving our councils an excuse to proscribe their use. Go figure! They can't stop you putting one in (unless you’re a restaurant/hotel), just don't include one in a planning application.
To answer your technical questions; you need a sink with a 3 1/2" waste outlet - the type with a basket strainer. If your sink only has a 1 1/2" plug & chain waste, you will probably need to change your sink.
The systems for dewatering the food waste for removal and separate disposal are more for the commercial market but I could be wrong.
I hope this is some help.

K.Flyer

In response to your post, I do not believe that they are well suited to most of our archaic drainage systems.
Firstly most people treat / use them as an alternative bin and throw almost any and all food waste stuff into them.
Not all food waste is suitable to be disposed through them. Coupled with old earthenware popework with cracked and poor joints blockages in the system become more frequent. A lot of food stuffs do not break down quickly enough to be carried away in the sewer system, they fliw for a little bit and at the first chane the partvles stop, build up and block the pipe. Egg shells, Onions and Coffee are some of the big culprits.
In my opinion they should be banned, but hey, I make money clearing the blockages and flushing out the pipes caused by them, only last week I made a handy few bob thanks to one of them.

Highways

K.Flyer wrote: »

In response to your post, I do not believe that they are well suited to most of our archaic drainage systems.
Firstly most people treat / use them as an alternative bin and throw almost any and all food waste stuff into them.
Not all food waste is suitable to be disposed through them. Coupled with old earthenware popework with cracked and poor joints blockages in the system become more frequent. A lot of food stuffs do not break down quickly enough to be carried away in the sewer system, they fliw for a little bit and at the first chane the partvles stop, build up and block the pipe. Egg shells, Onions and Coffee are some of the big culprits.
In my opinion they should be banned, but hey, I make money clearing the blockages and flushing out the pipes caused by them, only last week I made a handy few bob thanks to one of them.

I agree certain foods should not be put down FWDs including egg shells but the manufacturers instructions generally point out what can and can't go down so we're back to the intelligence of the user. The problem is more to do with the binding effect of the residual egg white rather than the shells themselves. Haven't come across problems with Onions or coffee myself so I'm wondering was fat involved? All of the studies look at different foods and it always comes back to FOG(fat, oil & grease) being the culprit not the food waste which becomes the innocent bystander at the scene of the crime!
Glad to hear your making a few bob anyway.:)

Highways

Here's a piece I found about the Surahammar study;
Most recent piece of research, which has been accepted for publication in a peer reviewed journal, found FWDs contribute to increased production of sustainable energy, had no impact on the sewer system. To reduce waste sent to landfill the town of Surahammar offered its citizens differential charges for waste collection. This included home composting, kerbside collection and an 8-year contract to lease a food waste disposer (FWD) from Surahammar’s KommunalTeknik AB (SKT). Over the 10 years 50% of households chose the FWD option and it offered a unique chance to conduct a controlled study over a decade. This concluded there was no increase in water usage, sewer blockages, nor accumulation of solids, fat oil and grease, hydrogen sulphide or corrosion. There also was no change in wastewater treatment cost but on the contrary FWD usage increased biogas production by 46%.

Source:

Evans, T.D.; Andersson, P.; Wievegg, A.; Carlsson, I. (2010) Surahammar – a case study of the impacts of installing food waste disposers in fifty percent of households. Water Environment Journal, 241. 309-319.

K.Flyer

Highways wrote: »

...The problem is more to do with the binding effect of the residual egg white rather than the shells themselves. Haven't come across problems with Onions or coffee myself so I'm wondering was fat involved? All of the studies look at different foods and it always comes back to FOG(fat, oil & grease) being the culprit not the food waste which becomes the innocent bystander at the scene of the crime.

I appreciate education regarding usage can be an issue, but in most of the cases I have attended to F.O.G. was not the issue at all. Last week I took out a large amount of mulched veg which did not flow away.
Regarding egg shells, ground down egg shells basically turn into something that represents sand, we took buckets of it out of a drain years ago.

BrenCooney

The main reason councils don't like them is because they increase the BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) load of the sewage enormously. Sewage plants are built to take an average BOD load of 60 grams per person, but with the insinkerators they increase the load way beyond that. The sewage works are not able to cope with the load and thus produce a poor effluent causing pollution. If the sewage works were built to take this additional load the additional electrical energy load would make it very expensive to run.

Highways

K.Flyer wrote: »

I appreciate education regarding usage can be an issue, but in most of the cases I have attended to F.O.G. was not the issue at all. Last week I took out a large amount of mulched veg which did not flow away.
Regarding egg shells, ground down egg shells basically turn into something that represents sand, we took buckets of it out of a drain years ago.

I'm not going to argue with your personal experience; maybe these occurrences were downstream of hotel or restaurants. At the risk of repeating myself the perceived risks and threats have been investigated and debunked by impartial trials - read the reports, don't accept my word.

BrenCooney wrote: »

The main reason councils don't like them is because they increase the BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) load of the sewage enormously. Sewage plants are built to take an average BOD load of 60 grams per person, but with the insinkerators they increase the load way beyond that. The sewage works are not able to cope with the load and thus produce a poor effluent causing pollution. If the sewage works were built to take this additional load the additional electrical energy load would make it very expensive to run.

Bren, I've been listening to these claims for years from council engineers but have yet to see any scientific basis for them. On the other hand from the Surahammar 15 year study I've already mentioned;
"There was no significant increase in hydraulic load, or in the loading of BOD7, COD, N or NH4. As a result of Surahammar's overall waste strategy, not just the FWD, but the tonnage of waste to landfill from the municipality has also decreased from 3600 tonnes/year in 1996 to 1400 tonnes/year in 2007."

BrenCooney

The scientific basis for it is all organic matter has a BOD load when it breaks down. The BOD of ordinary sink water is in the low hundreds, that of a slurry of macerated food waste approaches the low thousands. The reason for the lower BOD in European or US waste streams is due to the larger volumes of water they use. Ireland uses approx 110 litres per person, they use close on 200 litres. So they effectively dilute the macerated food waste, but don't for get they use larger volumes so the total BOD and volume act as if there is a larger population discharging to the treatment works. thus the need to build a bigger sewage treatment works , more expense, etc.

Irish Steve

At the risk of opening up a can of worms, the options appear to be using a sink waste disposal, or using a compost bin, or having the waste taken away for recycling at some unknown facility.

A properly constructed treatment works will harvest the solids, and produce methane gas from those solids, to provide heat to assist the process, and probably provide "spare" gas that can be used for space heating in local offices, workshops etc, so the extra BOD may well provide a benefit to the overall package. It's not a new tecnology, my father was responsible for installing it at a site in the UK over 40 years ago, and it was very successful, and had no environmental impact, there were no nastly smells from the system once it had been installed, it got rid of that problem once and for all. Condoms and disposable nappies are a much bigger problem than food waste as far as the local treatment works is concerned, disposing of nappies down the loo is not a good thing to be doing..

A compost bin is a local solution, and if it can be used, it will provide useful fertiliser for the garden.

Collecting the waste to take it by road for further treatment is the worst of all worlds. The waste may start decaying in the bin before collection, and the smell can be unpleasant at best, and downright nasty at worst. The handling of the bins is a rotten job, even with modern handling machinery, and it's carbon expensive, due to the diesel used in the collecting vehicle. The processing may also have carbon implications, depending on how it's done.

Once again, Ireland manages to produce a set of "rules" that fly in the face of conventional logic, simply to benefit an agenda that has very little real basis in scientific fact, and a lot of benefit for the Golden Circle that has so many of these specialities sewn up.

We have a sink waste disposal, it's been there for the better part of 20 years, and I'm not about to take it out without some very clear scientific proof that it's bad for "the environment", any evidence I've seen says exactly the opposite.

BrenCooney

Worms or maggots?
It would be much better if people compost their own food waste and not dump it down the sink.
You logic of it being more carbon neutral to flush down the sink is not correct. Waste water treatment plants use an awful lot of energy to operate to break down the BOD, to the sewage sludge which is left. And then the sludge still needs to be composted before being applied to land, so why put in that extra step and compost straight away. With regard to the odours if people have a problem with it then don't generate the waste.
There is nothing wrong with the science.

baaba maal

BrenCooney wrote: »

Worms or maggots?
It would be much better if people compost their own food waste and not dump it down the sink.
You logic of it being more carbon neutral to flush down the sink is not correct. Waste water treatment plants use an awful lot of energy to operate to break down the BOD, to the sewage sludge which is left. And then the sludge still needs to be composted before being applied to land, so why put in that extra step and compost straight away. With regard to the odours if people have a problem with it then don't generate the waste.
There is nothing wrong with the science.

Agreed. Also, unfortunately sewage treatment plants are by necessity built uphill of many houses, so the effluent has to be pumped. A litre of tapwater weighs a kilo, a litre of (diluted) macerated household food waste considerably more. Think about the amount of energy required to pump this additional waste to the treatment plants.
The brown bin collections (for food and garden waste) are going to be rolled out over the next few years to all towns and villages with more than 500 inhabitants, so economies of scale should kick in with the composting facilities.
Also, remember that Irish Water are planning to charge for "water in-water out"- in other words, any house connected to a mains sewer will be paying a flat charge for this as part of their overall water bill. They may decide (I am speculating here) to look at the issue of food waste disposal into sewers and charge accordingly.

Irish Steve

The problem with the brown bins is that the charges for them are disproportionately high. Our brown bin, which arrived 5 months ago, was free until January, when we were using it our 2 weekly uplift was averaging 3 Kg per fortnight, partly because we manage our waste well, We were not using the sink waste unit. The charge for the brown bin is now a flat charge of €4.50 every 2 weeks. If we were to continue to use the sink waste unit, we'd have to be using a massive quantity of water and electricity to come anywhere near that sort of cost per 2 weeks.

If we were putting out 20 or 30 Kgs of bio degradeable waste every 2 weeks, which some families seem to be capable of, then maybe €4.50 would not seem so bad, but where it's 3 or 4 very lonely looking poly bags at the bottom of the bin, that's a cost I'd prefer to manage without, given the way our finances are right now. We generate quite a bit of grass cuttings in the summer, I used to deal with that on site, maybe I will use the brown bin, but realistically, it's a cost we don't really need, not at the level it's being charged at right now.

Re the BOD of the waste systems, I know that the site my father managed produced a very significant methane surplus that (at that time) was used for space heating, and related uses, it could also be used now for electricity generation. There was very little waste out of the digesters, originally, (40 years ago) it was taken off shore by a custom designed tanker and discharged to feed the local fish, but the EU has stopped that now. My father has long since retired, and we moved to Ireland, so I don't know how that side of things is managed now, I think the final output is used as fertiliser on fields.

If the treatment plants are uphill from the source of the waste, that's bad planning. Pumping waste water uphill to a treatment plant is a serious pain, both from a cost point of view, and from a reliability point of view, blocked pumps, (disposable nappies again) and no power if ESB drops out are both hassles that are expensive to resolve, it happens here because of bad design, Meath CC have to pump uphill because they'd overloaded an existing line and couldn't get back to it to relay with larger pipes because of the developments they'd allowed over it. The only solution was a detention tank and pumps, using a new line that had to go over a hill to get back on to the old line further down the system, they have to clean the strainers very regularly to avoid blockages.

IW are going to be a mega rip off. I don't object in principle to water charges, I fully appreciate the costs involved in supplying potable water, and the even higher cost of disposing of waste water, I saw it at first hand for 20 years.

Taking water and waste water out of the political arena in this country is the only way to get it on to a sensible basis, given the parish pump nature of Irish Politics, water and bins have been a political football for far too long.

That said, the IW solution is the worst of all worlds, the people running it have a track record of waste and inefficiency, it's been hived out of local authorities in the worst possible way, and the people at the top are not truly accountable to anybody, have an inbuilt "allowances and bonuses culture" and we all know how ineffective state regulators are at monitoring and controlling monopoly charges.

dathi

Irish Steve wrote: »

A properly constructed treatment works
.

the ashbourne area plan 2009 to 2015 says that the waste water treatment plants for the ashbourne area are already running at max capacity so the extra bod load of food waste will contribute to poorer water quality in the area

Irish Steve

The Ashbourne "treatment" plant is no more than a preliminary filter that discharges water into the broadwater river, and then pumps the remainder effluent to the Dublin area treatment service via Mulhuddart.

Meath County Council have a lot of questions to answer about their "management" of waste water over the last 25 years, they have allowed massive development in the area without costing, funding or implementing anything realistic in terms of waste water management, I am well aware of many of those shortcomings, and it's one of the reasons why I hope that IW will be able to make the hard decisions that our elected representatives have proved themselves incapable of doing.

The Ashbourne plant has no secondary treatment of any nature, it is only a filter that allows the water content of the waste to be reduced so that the effluent can be pumped on. The situation is not helped by the long term problem that has happened as a result of years of bad management by the local authorities, which has resulted in huge volumes of surface water being discharged into the waste water system, and nothing IW does at present is going to change that, and many house owners will not even be aware that their builder took short cuts and dumped surface water into the sewers rather than paying the extra cost of putting in surface water management systems. Very sore point in this area, due to unresolved issues with MCC that they are unwilling and unable to even recognise responsibility for, let alone resolve.

dathi

if you already know about the treatment works then wouldn't the environmental thing to be to disconnect the sink waste unit as it adds significantly to the BOD load of your effluent stream and to compost it instead. until such time as the infrastructure can be improved in your area to advocate the use of sink waste disposal units is wrong

Highways

Some interesting claims on here on the perceived negative effects of FWD usage. Can you please post the links to the peer-reviewed evidence-based FWD studies on which these claims are based. To my knowledge, the % of homes in Ireland with a FWD is still tiny (1%-2% max.) and therefore too few to have any measurable effect on local WWTP, sewers, storm drains etc. whereas the studies I have posted above, endorsing FWD use, are based on trials with large scale FWD usage or simulations thereof.
The idea that we have a unique wastewater regime here so therefore the pro-FWD studies don't apply here doesn't hold water.;)

Irish Steve

dathi wrote: »

if you already know about the treatment works then wouldn't the environmental thing to be to disconnect the sink waste unit as it adds significantly to the BOD load of your effluent stream and to compost it instead. until such time as the infrastructure can be improved in your area to advocate the use of sink waste disposal units is wrong

My using or not using the ISE is totally irrelevant to Ashbourne Treatment works, as no treatment as such is done here, all that happens is that the solid/liquid split is done, and the solids are then pumped on to Mulhuddart,

The capacity issue is because MCC did not properly supervise many of the builders that threw up some of the estates over the last 20 years, and significant quantities of storm water are being discharged into the sewer system, that is the reason for the overload, and nothing to to with our BOD.

The other issue is that when they were getting massive sums of money in from developers, Meath CC took the cheap way out, rather than sort out the land and the costs of putting in a full treatment plant in a new location near the town, although it is possible that they also had to avoid hassles with the EPA, as the local water course is probably not large enough to cope with the outflow levels, even if they are treated.

The underlying issue is that for years, water and waste water were not seen as an issue that deserved any real attention from the county councils, and due to the lack of effective funding from Central Government, if there was a right way or a cheap way to do a job, the cheap way won every time, even though the result of that was to push an even more expensive solution down the road.

I would love to be in a position to be able to afford to be "green", but when I see the cost of doing so, and the cost of the alternative, I have to make practical real world decisions, and Green policy has this annoying habit of being massively expensive, because it's not been sensibly thought out by the people that don't have to worry about the cost.

Our Biological waste is probably no more than one bucket full per week, €4.50 every 2 weeks to remove 2 buckets of waste is a seriously high charge for what's involved, a bin going to landfill that's twice the size of the brown bin is €9, which makes the brown bin a seriously expensive charge, given that the waste is usable for producing power, or fertiliser, or both, so not just a pure cost as is the case with landfill.

If I was younger, and had some spare cash, I'd be making my own anaerobic digester here to deal with the biological waste, and use the output to heat the house in winter, but Anno Domini and finance make that impossible.

Big Wex fan

Can these be used with septic tank systems? I know a certain/small amount will already be going into the septic tank from the sink and dish washer. Would an increased amount cause issues with rats? Tank needing emptying much more often? Looking into this because of the pay by weight rubbish collection coming in.

jim salter

So, has anyone used these systems recently.

Am considering getting one and would like to hear of peoples experiences with them

ei9go

On my second one and would not be without it.

Suggest you get the ISW top of the range model because there is relatively not that much more expense and it will do beef bones and just about everything else you can throw at it. Smaller ones can struggle with even soft chicken bones.

In the USA most are fitted in the main sink and it is no problem if space is an issue and you can't have two sinks.

Be aware of the weight if you have sinks glued to a granite top and support it with a piece of wood.

Often very good deals on Amazon.

jim salter

ei9go wrote: »

On my second one and would not be without it.

Suggest you get the ISW top of the range model because there is relatively not that much more expense and it will do beef bones and just about everything else you can throw at it. Smaller ones can struggle with even soft chicken bones.

In the USA most are fitted in the main sink and it is no problem if space is an issue and you can't have two sinks.

Be aware of the weight if you have sinks glued to a granite top and support it with a piece of wood.

Often very good deals on Amazon.

Thanks for the feedback.


I have looked at the different retailers here in Ireland. Power city sells them from €219 upwards....who did you get to install yours?

Also which model is the one you recommend? The highest I can find is the Evo100

EDIT:£325stg on Amazon for the Evo100

Sarahsiddons

jim salter wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback.


I have looked at the different retailers here in Ireland. Power city sells them from €219 upwards....who did you get to install yours?

Also which model is the one you recommend? The highest I can find is the Evo100

EDIT:£325stg on Amazon for the Evo100

I had one in my previous house, it was kenwood thats all i know about the make of it. I really miss it i never put bones into it but everthing else food waste wise. Leave cold tap run when its on and be careful of small items of cutlery and crockery falling into it. Its ideal if u have a double sink unit. If u get a bit of a smell from it sometimes put a lemon into it.

ei9go

jim salter wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback.


I have looked at the different retailers here in Ireland. Power city sells them from €219 upwards....who did you get to install yours?

Also which model is the one you recommend? The highest I can find is the Evo100

EDIT:£325stg on Amazon for the Evo100

Installed myself, there is nothing to it really.

Camelcamel shows a lowest price for the EV200 of £284 and £227 for the EV100 , price has spiked recently so keep an eye on the price or sign up to camel and they will notify you when it drops