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The better article would suggest getting rid of the garbage disposal entirely and having a wet garbage container by the sink for stuff better used in compost. Used cooking oil gets saved by me and used when I need to start a brush pile on fire. Unfortunately, that sometimes makes me hungry.
This is really good advice. When we bought a house with septic, the tank was pumped and empty. I had never had a septic tank before and it really intimidated me. The kitchen sink has a garbage disposal that I have never used, and it hasn’t been difficult at all to do that. Actually, I hardly used the garbage disposal when I was on city water/sewer.
Our neighbor has frequent septic problems, and from what I know of her habits, which is TMI, I think that the problem is what she pours and flushes down.
If you have a septic system, one of the worst things you can do is dump a bunch of water down the drain. The septic tank serves as a place that bacteria can digest solids, releasing water and methane. It also acts as a settling tank, so undigested solids can sink to the bottom, where they can be pumped out. If those solids get pushed into the drain field by a surge of water, it will plug the drain field, resulting in a very expensive replacement of the whole system. A tank in good condition will have inlet and outlet baffles, but if solids haven't had time to settle out, they will get into the drain field.
We put food waste in the trash. Kids clean off the plates and dump everything in the trash. We have pipes that are old though. I am building a gray water system for the house that will include the kitchen sink. Don't have any plans to replace the drain line under my slab. The kitchen sink is being re routed outside of the house and into the front yard. I have a couple trees that will love to get the water I will be sending there way.
Although I will thoroughly wash paint brushes off with soap and water in the sink (after blotting them with paper towels), actually pouring paint down is probably a bad idea even with latex paint.
I have poured small amounts of leftover genuine milk paint down but now I see that is also bad. It’s a good thing that mixing just the right amount from powder is so easy; not much leftover liquid paint to discard then. From now on I will treat it like latex paint: let the leftover paint dry up/solidify, then discard with regular trash.
If you have a septic system, one of the worst things you can do is dump a bunch of water down the drain. The septic tank serves as a place that bacteria can digest solids, releasing water and methane. It also acts as a settling tank, so undigested solids can sink to the bottom, where they can be pumped out. If those solids get pushed into the drain field by a surge of water, it will plug the drain field, resulting in a very expensive replacement of the whole system. A tank in good condition will have inlet and outlet baffles, but if solids haven't had time to settle out, they will get into the drain field.
This needs clarification. The concept is one to keep in mind, but in a properly functioning and cared for tank would take something like rerouting gutters in a heavy rain into the house sanitary drains to create an issue. The internal volume of a properly sized tank will handle a soaking tub or two of water without flinching... UNLESS... the tank has not had the solids pumped out for years, and the build-up of solids has effectively reduced the volume of the tank to a few hundred or few tens of gallons. Even then, the water will simply pass above the solids unless the flow is strong enough and continuous enough to scour the surface of the solids near the inlet to the tank. When a field fails after heavy use of a system, that use is most likely just the straw that broke the camel's back and not the core problem.
The baffles in a tank are there to keep the "cap" of floating material in place and out of the drain field, not to deal with the sinking solids.
At issue is that many people wait for warning signs of problems before spending a couple hundred to have a tank cleaned. Warning signs are signs of impending failure and $$$ or $,$$$ or even $$,$$$ in unexpected and avoidable expense.
that milk piece is so insane that it discredits the whole article. even the whole website.
Yup. "The problem is that the process of breaking milk down uses a lot of oxygen. When that oxygen is used up by that process, that leaves less for the living things that rely on it. Milk in large enough quantities can suffocate entire ecosystems, and large-scale milk spills have previously wiped out entire fish populations." So... don't put a half-cup of milk down your drain because you'll wipe out the entire fish population of the East Coast. Somehow, they made the leap from what is not allowed on an industrial scale to what shouldn't be done on an individual home scale.
Most of that article had to do with garbage disposals. Since I don't have one, I guess I will happily let most of that stuff slide down the drain.
Somehow, they made the leap from what is not allowed on an industrial scale to what shouldn't be done on an individual home scale.
.
This is what baffled me about the insane milk piece. I was reading it and thinking to myself, who would have 500 gallons of milk to pour down the drain at their house?
Municipal systems get old paint, motor oil, cooking oil and other noxious liquids. Don't do that.
Our garbage company does have places that take those things, and fluorescent lights, and batteries and household chemicals. You have to take them to them, but they take it and recycle and properly dispose of them at no extra charge to the customer.
They also don’t do much to advertise it. Just a yearly mailer.
I will continue to pour milk down the sink once it passes the expiration date along with pasta water. Cooking oil I put in a glass jar, freeze it and set it out with the trash. Food I put in the trash and never down the garbage disposal.
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Somehow, they made the leap from what is not allowed on an industrial scale to what shouldn't be done on an individual home scale.
