Despite their hard exterior, eggshells can cause problems for your garbage disposal. The membrane lining the shell can wrap around the disposal blades, leading to clogs. Additionally, the shells can break into small pieces that are difficult to flush out.
Putting eggshells in garbage disposals is generally discouraged for several reasons: Clogging: Eggshells can create a gritty substance that may accumulate and lead to clogs in the pipes. The tiny pieces can combine with other food waste and debris, causing blockages.
Stringy foods—like celery, onion skins, banana peels, and corn husks—can ruin your garbage disposal. While a small section of a corn husk may not do harm, constantly throwing stringy food down increases the chances of something wrapping around the impeller.
A shell or two now and then probably won't cause a clog, but Consumer Reports warns that a steady diet of eggshells will eventually lead to buildup and clog your drain. They simply don't break down as well as other foods.
If food can go down the garbage disposal, why isn't the same true for coffee grounds? Unlike most foods, coffee grounds clump together in water rather than breaking down. With time, the grounds can build up inside your sink drains, creating clogs that can prohibit the drains from doing their job.
Because eggshells can be composted, there's no need to ever toss your used eggshells into the trash can. Instead, you can crush up your eggshells and add them to your compost pile. As a bonus, adding eggshells to your garden's soil will help to keep pests like snails, slugs, cutworms, and cats away.
Gardening
Another great role eggshells can play in your garden is the security system of the soil. Crush your extra eggshells and scatter them around the roots of your plants; the sharp edges will cut pests like slugs, cutworms, and snails, causing them to dry out and die and protecting your plants from danger.
Best Option
Put this item in your organic waste (formerly green waste) cart.
You should also avoid putting the following food items down there, too: Banana peels and Corn husks: both are really fibrous and likely to cause your disposal to work harder than it needs to break these down. You're better off just throwing these in the trash or compost bin.
Washing coffee grounds down the sink can lead to serious problems for your pipes. Coffee grounds were once sturdy, rock-hard beans, and they maintain that firm quality even after they are ground down. Over time, the grounds clump together, creating build-up in your pipes.
Myth: Ice Cubes Will Sharpen the Blades
Ice cubes can actually be good for your disposal as they knock off any left over food bits on the blades. If you want even better cleaning results try making ice cubes out of lemon juice or vinegar to put down the disposal (don't ingest them though!).
Eggs are well-known culprits for causing pipe clogs and blockages. The thin membrane present in eggshells has a tendency to cling to pipes and can easily break into small pieces.
Potato peels and skins are notorious for causing clogs due to their starchy composition, which creates a thick paste when mixed with water. This thick paste sticks to the garbage disposal blades and pipes, clogging and potentially damaging your plumbing system.
Turn on the cold water and the disposal. Drop chicken bones into the disposal. Grinding these soft but rigid bones will sharpen the disposal blades. Let the cold water run until you hear the disposal finish grinding the bones.
Egg Shells
The membrane lining the shell can wrap around the disposal blades, leading to clogs. Additionally, the shells can break into small pieces that are difficult to flush out. It's best to compost eggshells or dispose of them in the regular trash.
Eggshells contain lots of calcium and other nutrients plants need. If you use a worm bin to compost, ground eggshell can also help your worms digest the other food scraps in the bin. Worms, like chickens, use grit to help grind up their food, and ground eggshell works well for this purpose.
There's a wild theory that tossing eggshells into the garbage disposal actually sharpens the blades, but it's not true. While eggshells won't kill the disposal, it's not a great idea to let them inside it. Similar to onions, eggshells have a film-like membrane that can wrap around the blades and hinder movement.
Natural fertiliser
Eggshells consist of 90 per cent calcium. Any plant that loves calcium will thank you if you crumble the eggshells and then spread them over the soil as fertiliser. These include peonies, chrysanthemums, tomatoes, onions, redcurrants, chives, chard and elderberries.
Banana peels, pineapple tops, celery ends, cabbage — unless you're putting them in your disposal in extremely small amounts, they just won't break down properly. What's worse, they're liable to wrap around the blades, preventing them from working properly and eventually destroying the motor.
Putting cooked pasta and rice down your garbage disposal can turn into a nasty problem. The garbage disposal mashes the rice and pasta and creates a thick paste that can cause your disposal to stop working or clog the drain, which prevents water from going through your disposal.
Things like citrus fruits and ice cubes are fine to put down the garbage disposal and they'll actually help keep things running smoothly and smelling their best.