Plumber Helper

Your kitchen is clean and you have taken out the garbage but there is a bad smell in the air(insert your own joke here)? It might be your garbage disposal. Kitchen garbage disposals are usually forgotten about until they clog or develop a bad odor.

Bad odors from garbage disposals aren’t uncommon. When you think about it, with food being disposed on a daily basis, it’s no wonder why garbage disposals develop bad odors from time to time. Old food gets trapped in crevices, on the splash guard, and odor-causing bacteria eventually begins to form. Bacteria are the culprits for creating foul odors, and if you get rid of bacteria, you’ll get rid of the odors.

Cleaning the Disposal

Before getting rid of garbage disposal odors it’s important first to clean the garbage disposal. If you don’t clean the disposal first, you’ll end up covering up odors instead of getting rid of them.

So about once a month, simply fill the disposer side of the sink with hot water, and add about 1/8 cup of grease-cutting dishwashing liquid. After the sink is full, remove the stopper, and turn on the disposal while continuing to run hot water. The hot water combined with degreaser will effectively clean away grease and grime, and it will also help clean out the pipes in the process.

Splash Guard Cleaning

Sometimes bad odors aren’t coming from inside the disposer, but actually from the underside of the splash guard. The rubber splash guard eventually becomes covered with grime and slime. Periodically wipe the underside of the splash guard with deodorizing kitchen cleaner or a mixture of bleach and water. This alone might solve your smelly garbage disposal problem.

Citrus Peel

Don’t waste your money buying expensive garbage disposal deodorizers. Once the unit is clean, consider deodorizing it by tossing in lemon, lime, or orange peels. Your garbage disposal will smell as fresh as a citrus grove. Do this once every couple of weeks along with regular cleaning, and your disposal won’t have a chance to develop a bad odor.

Mint Extract

If you prefer the scent of mint over citrus, give your disposer a fresh clean scent with a little mint extract. After the garbage disposal has been cleaned, pour several drops of mint extract into the unit. Allow the mint extract to remain in the disposer a few hours before turning it on and rinsing it away. Your disposer will smell fresh and clean for days.

Vinegar Ice

You wouldn’t want to put this ice in a glass of cola, but ice made with vinegar does wonders for smelly garbage disposals. Fill an ice tray with a mixture of white vinegar and water. Freeze this concoction, and put it down your smell disposer while running cold water. The ice will help sharpen the blades, and the vinegar will deodorize the unit. Make a tray of vinegar ice every other week so your garbage disposal continues to smell clean and fresh. Just make sure you label this ice so someone doesn’t get an unpleasant surprise.

A few other ideas from the web

Coffee grounds - Instead of tossing the coffee grounds in the bin when you’re finished making a pot of coffee, put them down the drain. Run some water and turn on the disposal for a second, and odors are gone!

Clean odors from garbage disposal - Disposer Care is a product you can buy at most WalMarts or Home Depot. You drop a packet into the disposal and run water. A blue foam comes up and you can watch it clean. Afterward, your garbage disposal is clean and fresh, with a scent of lemon. It cleans away grunge and stuff found in your garbage disposal.

Odors - Citrus fruits are the best thing I have found to clean my garbage disposal drain. I use 2 of any of the following (small orange, lemon, or lime) cut into fourths, with hot water. The acid and oil from the rind with cut the grease and remove any food stuck in the blades. The hot water activates the fragrance and helps loosen food and grease from the drain.