You absolutely should not put these Thanksgiving foods in your garbage disposal – Citizen Times

ASHEVILLE- Forget about Black Friday.

Plumbers know the day after Thanksgiving as something else altogether: "Brown Friday," so-named for the increase in service calls.

Plumbing giant Roto-Rooter, which has about 620 locations across the United States, reports a 50% increase in customer calls the day after Thanksgiving over regular Fridays, making it the busiest plumbing day the company faces all year.

Asheville's Blue Planet Plumbing also feels the annual crunch,with plenty of those service calls coming from broken, snarled or backed up garbage disposals.

So how do you avoid becoming part of that unsavory Brown Friday statistic? Make sure you're thinking about what you're dumping down your pipes, even if you have a disposal.

When a disposal is working properly, it macerates your leftover food into pulp, which then mixes with water, passes through tiny holes in the base of the device, then enters the waste stream.

At least that's how Asheville's Blue Planet Plumbing ownerGeorg Efird describes it. "Most of the time, these food particles will evacuate the plumbing system and never be a problem," he said.

But when plumbing lines aren't properly pitched, food, grease and other waste can accumulate, eventually causing a blockage.

It's also worth noting that the food you dump down the drain doesn't just disappear into the ether.

Roger Edwards, director of operations and pretreatment at the Metropolitan Sewerage District of Buncombe County, does not have an official stance on disposals, but he has a personal opinion and it's not a good one.

Never pour fats, oils or grease in your disposal. They congeal and can gum up the works.(Photo: -Oxford-, Getty Images)

"They solve the initial user's problems," he said diplomatically. "They grind food up and send it to the sewer, and we just end up trying to take it back out of the wastewater once it gets here to the plant."

That's right: The food you dump down the disposal just gets skimmed out at the wastewater treatment plant, where it's eventually shipped to the landfill. So basically, you've only made your food waste someone else's problem, and given it a more circuitous route to travel.

The most environmentally sensitive way to handle food waste is to compost what you can, and throw meat products in the trash. Of course, when you have bears in the neighborhood, that does complicate things.

On a septic system? Don't even bother with a garbage disposal. Though you may find some disposals on the market marked"septic safe,"there's really no such thing, Efird said.

More on food waste:

(Story continues below)

A look inside the Metropolitan Sewerage District's Water Reclamation Facility where Asheville's wastewater is processed. Angeli Wright, awright@citizen-times.com

Solids are removed from sewage arriving at the Metropolitan Sewerage District's water reclamation facility beginning the treatment process on Oct. 9, 2018. (Photo: Angeli Wright/awright@citizen-times.com)

Garbage disposals are convenient, but they have their limits. Never try to stuff large quantities of food down the drain. Also, skip anything stringy or particularly hard. As a point of reference, if you'd have a hard time chewing and swallowing something, chances are so will your disposal, according to Efird. These are just some of the food items you shouldn't put in your disposal:

While some of those food items can wrap around and snarl your disposal blades, others can accumulate and effectively narrow the diameter of your piping, eventually causing your plumbing to back up.

"Even worse, a lot of these items can make their way into the city sewer system, causing blockages on main lines, especially coagulated grease and animal fats," Efird said.

Those oily foes, which the folks at the MSD call FOG fats, oils and grease are particularly pernicious.

Roger Edwards, Wastewater Reclamation Facility Operations Manager, shows how clean the water leaving the facility has become after treatment as it is released back into the French Broad River as he gives a tour on Oct. 9, 2018.(Photo: Angeli Wright/awright@citizen-times.com)

FOG may take a while to coagulate, but once it does, it can block pipes anywhere from near the point of entryall the way to the wastewater treatment plant.

"And then it can solidify in our piping and can lead to blockages,"Edwards said.

With the MSD managing morethan 1,000 miles of public sewer pipes andprocessing about 20 million gallons of wastewater per day, there's a lot of room for error, especially with the oily food that tends to dominate Thanksgiving and Christmas.

More: Thanksgiving 2019: Book your reservations early! See Asheville restaurants open for the holiday

"We know there's a lot of cooking going on around the holidays, so we want to remind people not todump any of the drainage from their cooking process down the drain," Edwards said. "It all contains a certain amount of oil and grease."

And, as is always the case, Edwards said people should not use their toilets as trash cans.

"Don't put Q-tips and dental floss and cotton balls, or anything other than body waste and tissue paper in your toilet."

It may sound elemental, but the job of educating the public is never done.

"Always be mindful of what you're putting down your drain and down your toilet," Edwards said. "If you have something to dispose ofjust put it in your trash can, because it's going to end up in the landfill anyway."

The official word from Blue Planet Plumbing: No. Here's more, from the plumbing company's blog:

"The chemicals in many over the counter drain cleaners have high toxicity levels and create fumes that arent healthy to inhale. These cleaners are also damaging to metallic pipes, often completely destroying them underground or under slab."

Toxic fumes can hang around long after cleaners have gone down the drain, and the harsh chemicals can also eat away at the finishes in your tubs and sink.

Even worse, hydrochloric acid, the primary chemical used in many drain cleaners, can corrode underground pipes, leaching toxins into the soil.

The solution? Call a plumber, or don't put weird things down your drain in the first place.

You've been warned.

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You absolutely should not put these Thanksgiving foods in your garbage disposal - Citizen Times