Clean, Sharpen, and Deodorize Your Garbage Disposal!
5 Materials
$3
20 Minutes
Easy
If your garbage disposal is smelling or making terrible noises, or your dishwasher is not getting things clean like it used to, it may be time to service your garbage disposal in your sink! Follow along for the instructions on how to fine-tune it!
Step 1: Gather your supplies
- Vinegar
- Baking Soda
- Lemon
- Ice
- Sea Salt
Step 2: This begins the sharpen blades process!
Put a couple of cups of ice cubes in a bowl and sprinkle it liberally with the Sea Salt. The ice will sharpen the blades, and the sea salt helps by exfoliating old food from the blades and sides of disposal.
Dump the ice and salt into the garbage disposal – don’t fill it above the line where the sink plug will be inserted.
Insert the plug into the sink, and here’s a tip – HOLD it down until you’re done! The ice spinning around in the disposal can actually make the plug pop out of there, and believe me…you don’t want a hunk of ice flying through the air at your forehead!
Do NOT turn on the water – just turn on the disposal and let it run until you hear no more chopping noises…just the nice, quiet humming of the motor.
Step 3: Cleaning the disposal!
Use baking powder – I just shake enough into the drain so I can easily see that it is coating the bottom, and I try to get it all around the sides as well. I do enough to give it a nice, thick coating.
Pour in white vinegar – again, there is no exact measurement here. You need enough to cover all the baking soda.
Once you don’t hear bubbling anymore, simply turn on the cold water tap, let it flow into the drain, and turn on the disposal to help it flush out all those remaining food particles.
Why cold water? Most of us will always have a certain amount of grease in the drain – it is best to use cold water so any grease residue solidifies and then gets chopped up into tiny pieces by the disposal and washes down the drain in small amounts instead of allowing it to block up your drains.
Step 4: Deodorize your disposal!
Cut a lemon in half – leave the seeds in!
Throw it in the disposal, one half at a time.
Turn on the cold water and let it run into the drain.
Turn on the garbage disposal. The lemon deodorizes the drain while the seeds and rind get chopped up and once again help to scour the interior sides of the disposal.
And now your disposal should be running great and smelling way better.
For more tips on how to use a disposal PROPERLY and prevent many issues, be sure to read the tips at the bottom of my blog post! If you want a FREE Printable, easy-to-use version of these cleaning instructions, that's offered in my post as well!
If you love easy to follow cleaning tutorials that actually work, be sure to check out my ebook Speed Clean the Deep Clean!
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Comments
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2 of 3 comments
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Thanks, my disposal really could use a good cleaning. Going to try it today!
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Love the ice cube trick! We tried freezing all the ingredients in an ice cube tray and it works just a well!
Frequently asked questions
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What's the dishwasher have to do with the garbage disposal?