How to clean and deodorize a garbage disposal?

Put lemons through it

Hi, Kathy. I use lemons, as suggested by Ray. I also have a rough, sturdy drinking glass brush. I use this to get into the slots as best I can. Most important - I use it to clean the rubber protective, black flaps - underneath, where who knows what has accumulated, resulting in, "Phew!". Use household cleaner of your choice; good old vinegar; Comet-but, don't mix other stuff with Comet. Shove the brush into disposal, like you would a glass and, "plunge", up and down, swrill (sp) around. Rinse brush ofen while doing this. Rinse thoroughly.

With the disposal running, put ice cubes (smaller ones are better) and salt (about 1/4 cup) into disposal with cold water running the whole time. Add more ice and salt as the disposal empties. Depending on how dirty the disposal is you may have to do this for several minutes. Once you believe the disposal is fairly clean, put lemon peel cut into smaller pieces into the disposal adding more salt as well. The trick to keeping your disposal clean is to always use cold water while the disposal is running and to continue running water for a minute after you turn the disposal off. You can also run the ice and salt or coffee grounds through you disposal once a week or so. The salt and the coffee grounds help scrape anything greasy off the side of the drain. The acid in the lemon peel helps break down some food particles and refreshes how the drain smells. Adding baking soda to the ice/salt mixture also helps refresh and clean.

Yes lemon or orange peels will work and leave a fresh citrusy scent. You could also run the disposal and leave faucet on and sprinkle baking soda and vinegar down it to freshen it up too.

Take 2 lemons cut up in 4 pieces each feed the disposal one at a time leave on after it’s done through 2 cups baking soda down with 1 cup of vinagar let foam for 20 min then wash with very hot water.

I grind lemon peels or orange peels every once in a while. THis helps.