Saturday, Jun 13

Welcome to Your Daily Dot where Dot will share tips, advice, and stories on how we can make our world better.

All Dear Dot illustrations by Elissa Turnbull.

Dear Dot,

As I assess peels and skins and tops and petals and stems, I often wonder: Where should I put this? It's equally easy for me to put most scraps in the compost or down the disposal. Which is preferable?

(And, a side note: My instinct is to just drop eggshells and coffee grounds down the disposal, because they are messy. But, I know those things can be used for compost. Should I make the extra effort to put them in the compost?)

Thanks!

–Elizabeth, Brooklyn, NYC

Dear Elizabeth,

When Mr. Dot and I purchased our first home, it came with a garbage disposal. I could drop in leftovers and spoiled food, flip a switch, listen to it chew up my waste, and then peer into my drain’s abyss, which was now beautifully empty. Where did all that stuff go? I had no idea. I cared only for the convenience of a magical switch.

Had I made any effort, I would have learned that my food waste was taking the same route to a municipal water treatment facility as the stuff I flushed down my toilet, which, as we all know, is food waste in a different form. I would have learned that it isn’t the what of garbage disposals that’s potentially problematic, it’s the how much. The average American throws out an extraordinary one pound of food every single day. Our wastewater infrastructure wasn’t designed to manage anywhere close to that volume. In fact, New York City was so concerned about what its system was being asked to handle that it banned garbage disposals for about two decades, from the 70s through to 1997. Vermont strongly discourages the use of garbage disposals but hasn’t gone so far as to ban them. 

(This issue is separate from the very serious and expensive problem of fatbergs — the grease and oils that can form blockages in city pipes. Never, under any circumstances, dump used cooking oil, grease, salad dressings, or other products with a high oil content down your drain.)

So, which is it? Compost or disposal?

Dot grinds out an answer. Keep reading.

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