10 Things You Should Never Put Down your Kitchen Sink

Look, we get it. It is mindlessly easy to flip the switch and let the mess go down the drain and broken down by your garbage disposal. However, there are certain things that should just never go down your kitchen sink. 

1. PASTA For the same reason that you should never put flour down the sink, you should never put pasta. When flour or pasta go down the sink drain, it continues to absorb liquid and swell. While the flour and pasta have no limits, your pipes have a fixed width. You may eventually experience a clog. 

2. RICE Much like pasta and flour, rice too soaks up water and gets soggier and stickier by the minute. 

3. EGG SHELLS When ground through the garbage disposal, the shells can actually dull the blades over time. As they continue down the pipes, they too can accumulate and cause a clog. If you are trying to keep them out of your trash can, a better place to put them is in your compost pile. Egg shells can provide all the calcium carbonate the soil needs to help lower the pH level, and make it beneficial for plant growth as many plants prefer low acidity. 
4. COFFEE GROUNDS Just like egg shells, your garden is a better place for coffee grounds than the kitchen sink drain. Plumbers say that coffee grounds are among the most common causes of kitchen sink clogs. Some plants that may enjoy your used coffee grounds are azaleas, roses, blueberries, lilies and evergreens.
5. COOKING OILS AND FATS Unless you are running hot water hard and long enough, cooking oils and fats tend to harden once it makes it down the drain. 
6. FOOD FAT Left over butter, bacon or meat fats, nut butters, etc. - they too should not go down the drain as they also tend to harden and cause issues. 
7. FOOD STICKERS It's rumored that the stickers on your produce dissolves over time - they are generally are made of plastic. They can stick to the sides of your drains, stick to filters in waste treatment, and eventually pollute our rivers and oceans. 
8. FRUIT PITS Your compost bin is a better place for the pits as it takes a while for decomposition. The garbage disposal is simply not strong enough to thoroughly break down fruit pits to fully flush out of the drain system.
9. BONES Even with the help from the garbage disposal, bones simply do not fully flush down the drain. 
10. MEDICATIONS While medications may not cause a clog (or we for sure hope not as most drugs go through our body), research within recent years has shown that drugs are now a common pollutant in drinking water.

If you are ever in need of a referral for a good plumber for your sink problems, let us get you connected!