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Waste Disposer - Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between a Continuous & Batch feed model?

There are two types of Food Waste disposer;

Batch Feed: food is loaded into the disposer before the power is introduced. After the grind process is completed, more food can be added and the program repeated.

Continuous Feed: food can continually be added during the grinding process.

Both types use the same grind mechanism, but adopt different styles to activate power.

How much does it cost to run a Waste Maid?
Waste Maid use energy efficient PM Motors. If used on average three-times/per day the yearly electric cost would be lower than 50 Pence. The daily water consumption will be lower than one flush of toilet.

What types of food waste can be ground in Waste Maid?
Waste Maid will accept most types of food waste including small bones and even Corn Cobs. It is recommended that Fibrous varieties be cut into strips and mixed with other food types. Tea bags, minus string/staple can also safely be placed in the Waste Maid.

Why can't I just compost?
Some rural homeowners include composting as a partial option for food waste disposal. A distinction between acceptable composting materials such as green waste (raw vegetables, fruit peels) versus non-acceptable putrescible food waste (proteins: meat, fish, dairy products, plus cooked foods) should encourage Waste Maid inclusion to offer the optimum combination for true composter lovers.

Is the Waste Maid noisy?
Noise level will vary, depending on the type of food waste inserted. As the unit is likely to be grinding for very short length of time (30 seconds) this will not present the homeowner with any problem. The #358 and #458 include increased sound installation specification features.

Are Waste Maid Disposers easy to install?
· The patented 'Speed-Master' mounting system allows for fast and simple installation.
· No Special Tools are needed to sink mount.
· The Waste Maid is provided with a Power Cord and moulded 13-amp plug.
· A Power Point to provide electricity should be in close proximity.
· For Continuous Feed Models a 13-amp Spur Switch can be located above sink level to provide the On/Off facility. Alternatively a Counter Top air switch or Wireless Control Switch can be utilized.

Will the Waste Maid fit my sink?
Waste Maid is designed to fit all 9Omm sink waste outlets to an overall Sink thickness of 24mm. Over this thickness dimension an Extend sink flange (up to 45 mm) is available. When non-stainless steel sinks are included in the design package, the installer should use a silicone to ensure a watertight connection is made to the sink flange/sink.

Can I use a Waste Maid with a septic tanks?
It is not a condition to be on mains drainage to use a Waste Maid. Waste Maid is Septic Safe for properly sized septic tanks (Minimum 750 Gallons).

How do I clean or maintain my disposer?
· The Motor is permanently lubricated for life.
· Waste Maid Disposers should be used regularly. Models are self-cleaning and scour itself with each use.
· The new Waste Maid line includes Bio Shield. This exclusive, build-in Antimicrobial Protection provides total protection against bacterial growth and odours.
· Food waste can accumulate under the Splash Guard. To ensure this does not present any problem with the Waste Maid, we have included in the design a removable Splash Guard to allow cleaning.
· This unique feature also allows for ease in removal of any foreign object that may accidentally fall into the Grind Chamber.

I have a dishwasher, can this be connected?
The Waste Maid incorporates a Dishwasher Discharge Inlet. This provides the option to utilize the Dishwasher plumbing through the Disposer if required.

Does the Waste Maid disposer jam?
Waste Maid utilizes the very latest technology in Disposer design including the Permanent Magnet Motors (PM). This motor produces high torque (twisting power) immediately when switched on. This feature especially helps to prevent potential jams.

Overload Protector - This will ensure if the Motor is accidentally left running the Motor will cut-out after a safe period of time. This will also prevent the Motor from overheat should a jam occur.

In the unlikely case a jam occurs, dejamming is very simple. Ensure the Disposer is switched off, check for foreign objects in grind chamber and remove or dislodge the object by rotating the turntable counter-clockwise with a screwdriver, wooden spool, or similar device. Press the reset button and then switch disposer back on.

What is the expected lifespan?
All motors have the capacity to wear out eventually. How quickly depends on the stress or load placed on the motor. Waste Maid is designed to be long lasting. By using PM Motor the torque is increased as the load increases. This not only means top performance, but also again prevents jamming.

All models are constructed from Stainless Steel (Grinding Components and Armature Shaft) and Thermoplastic Materials (Grind Chamber). This allows Waste Maid to include the unique Lifetime Corrosion Guarantee.

What about the Manufacturer's Warranty?
Waste Maid offers an extensive Warranty programme to cover any manufacturing defect

 

http://www.wastemissionimpossible.org.uk/pdf/FWDCashbackForm.pdf

http://www.wastemissionimpossible.org.uk/sinkyourwaste/index.html

http://www.wastemissionimpossible.org.uk/pdf/FWD_EIS_JHT_Summary.pdf

 

With today’s busier lifestyles and increasing demands on our time, we are all keen on labour-saving devices that can help us enjoy our leisure time to the full, whilst at the same time creating a clean and hygienic environment in the home. Installing a food waste disposer is an ideal way to let you spend more time doing the things you want to do around the home and less time worrying about what to do with your messy unwanted food waste. With putrescible waste (kitchen food scraps) accounting for 25% of household waste, using a food waste disposer not only means fewer trips to the wheelie bin but also results in a substantial reduction of waste going to landfill.

Food waste disposers remove waste quickly without the use of knives or blades. The food waste is ground down into fine particles and is then flushed away through the normal waste pipe system. This process can also aid recycling as the waste is transformed into a soil conditioner once at the treatment plant.

Installation of a food waste disposer is straightforward, either in a new or existing kitchen but we would advise you look at our Cyklon 370 NB  that simply locks into place. Food waste disposers are also extremely durable and a good quality manufacturer will offer warranties of up to 2 years. http://www.wastemissionimpossible.org.uk/ http://www.wastemissionimpossible.org.uk/pdf/FWD_EIS_JHT_Summary.pdf

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2006/aug/08/ethicalmoney.leohickmanonethicalliving

          Cyklon and the Environment

On an environmental note, water companies process the food waste your Cyklon delivers and after treatment the majority is recycled to fertilise farmland and forestry. You are also helping to reduce landfill and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

As the CIWEM* concludes in its policy statement on waste disposers: "Food waste disposers might well be a more convenient and environmentally superior alternative to separate storage and collection"

ENV.A.2¹ only and does not necessarily engage the Commission." The Director of Sustainable Development has subsequently confirmed (Priv. Comm. 2001) that an environmental directive is not able to ban equipment such as FWD but that Member States or municipalities could ban them if they had grounds to believe that they jeopardised sewerage or wastewater treatment.

Several States and municipalities have banned the installation of FWD but these bans appear to have had no objective basis because when the case has been examined objectively bans have been reversed. For example FWD have been banned in New York City since the 1970s but this was rescinded in 1997 following a 21 month study by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)³ of 3 paired groups of different types of apartments (514 with FWD and 535 controls). The DEP modelled capital and operating cost implications (sewerage, wastewater treatment, and solid waste disposal) and concluded that overall there was no significant difference.

In Sweden the town of Staffanstorp has been studied⁴ and concluded that in several cases FWD provide a very good solution to the waste problem. No accumulation in drains or sewers was found, neither was there a change in water consumption. The change in wastewater treatment, biogas and biosolids offset the solid waste collection. The nutrients from the ground food waste improved biological phosphate removal.

There have been similar conclusions in other studies, for example in the Netherlands⁵ , Germany⁶ and Israel⁷ . Approximately 33% of ground organic kitchen waste solids were solubilised and the remainder were transported evenly as bed load and as suspended solids even at low flow velocities and in the low sewer gradients common in the Netherlands. There was no impact on fat accumulation. It enhanced biological nutrient removal and increased biogas production at wastewater treatment works and reduced the amount and moisture content of municipal solid waste.

The studies cited above (and others) indicate that domestic FWD do not prejudice the performance of wastewater treatment works but there have been instances where FWD in the kitchens of commercial residential establishments have overloaded the small rural works to which they are sewered. This was because of lavish over-provision of food and consequent waste. In the UK regulatory control of this situation is the prerogative of the Local Authority rather than the sewerage undertaker. Fortunately this situation is the exception rather than the rule and soluble by tripartite discussion.

Many sewers carry rainwater (especially in older systems) and even where surface water connection is not intended there can be infiltration that swells flows in wet weather. Sewer capacity cannot be infinite and therefore it is sensible to make provision for overflow in the most severe conditions where it causes the least inconvenience. The Environment Agency normally requires that solids greater than 6mm in any direction are removed from Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO) and that sewage is not macerated upstream of a CSO. Sewage contains hair and other fibres that form a mesh across screens; finer solids can accumulate on this mesh. CSOs are generally raked mechanically to prevent such accumulation, which would lead to blockage if it were not removed. Installation of FWD increased the per capita suspended solids by 33%⁴. Measurements of the output from FWD show that about 98% of the input is reduced in size to <2mm⁶ therefore the solids cannot themselves block a CSO. However FWD do add fine particles to the general load in sewage, which would be discharged to the aquatic environment in the event of overflow. If the CSO design is such that particles <2mm accumulate on other debris and result in blockage, the impact of FWD will be to reduce the time to blockage rather than determine whether it will block or not.

Another consideration is the risk of veterinary disease transmission as a result of contaminated meat being disposed. One could argue that meat in kitchens should by definition be fit for consumption, but this neglects illegal meat imports. The evidence of the limited surveys of incoming flights and other routes suggests that there is considerable illegal meat importation. It is suggested to have been the cause of the recent swine vesicular and foot and mouth disease outbreaks. However DEFRA considers that, even with more stringent controls at points of entry, it will be impossible to eliminate illegal meat imports entirely. Fortunately the disease agents have a similar susceptibility to wastewater and sludge treatment as the other organisms of concern. Voluntary changes in practice by the water companies⁸ mean that even if infected meat were disposed via FWD to sewer the disease agents would be subject to two control barriers to veterinary infection. The first barrier is sludge treatment (conventional or enhanced) and the second the land use restrictions set out in the matrix⁸. CIWEM welcomes and celebrates the voluntary agreement and that government is going to use this as a "bottom-up" approach to revising the relevant legislation for use of biosolids on land.

The final consideration is financial. It is clear from the studies cited above that removing food waste from the solid waste stream reduces the cost of collecting and disposing that stream, however it is transferred to the liquid waste stream. If the receiving wastewater treatment works has anaerobic digestion (AD) and derives income from the biogas, the additional biogas more than offsets the cost of treating the aqueous stream⁶. The additional biogas could even make the difference between viability and non-viability of gas utilisation. But if the works does not have AD, or if it is unable to use the biogas there is nothing to offset the additional treatment cost. In many countries the local authority is responsible for both liquid and solid waste and cost transfer is not really critical. However in the UK liquid and solid wastes are completely separate businesses and it would be equitable to reimburse the wastewater business for relieving the solid waste business of part of its costs.

Key Issues

1. It appears that regulatory restrictions on the use of FWD have been the result of prejudiced opinion rather than objective assessment and that where impacts have been assessed objectively there has been shown to be no case for such restrictions.
2. Especially in areas of high-density accommodation the case for FWD as an alternative to separate collection of biodegradable waste appears strong, on the grounds of avoiding additional traffic and odour and possibly disease. Disease vectors such as foxes, rats, birds and flies are attracted to large particles of food in solid waste but FWD solubilise and grind food so that it is no longer attractive to these creatures.
3. The change in water usage associated with operation of FWD has been measured to be trivial or not significant.
4. The risk of accumulation in sewers has been found to be non-existent because the specific gravity of the ground waste is so low that the particles remain in suspension. Fat has been found to sorb onto other particles and therefore to be conveyed with the wastewater rather than to deposit on the sewer walls.
5. FWD do not alter the risk of blockages at CSOs with 6mm screens because <1% of particles are >5mm, but they might reduce the time to blockage for those that are prone to accumulate particles <2mm diameter.
6. There is currently understandable concern about veterinary risk in general, but since FWD will in the main process materials deemed fit for consumption their use should have no impact on this risk. Even if unfit, illegal meat were processed, the dual barriers of wastewater and sludge treatment and matching of biosolids type to land use will provide adequate control. In the event of overflow, the disease risk from food waste is unlikely to be as great as from faecal material, given that people disposing illegal meat are also likely to have consumed it and if there were veterinary pathogens they would be in consumers' faeces.
7. The increased oxygen requirement for secondary wastewater treatment has been found to be more than offset by the additional biogas production at sites where there is anaerobic digestion.
8. The additional food value of ground organic kitchen waste can improve biological nutrient removal (BNR) at wastewater treatment works. [Food supply is performance-limiting factor for BNR at some works.]
9. The addition of ground kitchen waste (high in organic matter, fat and moisture) to wastewater increases biogas production at works that anaerobically digest sludge. This has been estimated at 300MJ/resident·year⁶ (equivalent to 8 litres diesel). It also reduces the moisture content of the residual solid waste, which increases its calorific value and/or makes it easier to separate into useable fractions.

Conclusions

1. CIWEM recommends that policy decisions be proportionate to risk and based on objective assessment and that this applies as much to FWD as to other issues. Where there is insufficient information to allow objective assessment, action should be put in place to fill the information gap⁹ .
2. CIWEM considers that FWD may have a useful place in the management of food waste and that they might be a more convenient and environmentally superior alternative to separate storage and collection. However there is the question of cost transfer.
3. CIWEM would like to see additional independent research to further expand the growing body of evidence about FWD.

http://www.ciwem.org/policy/policies/food.asp

The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) is an independent professional body representing over 12,000 managers, and other professionals, in all sectors, who are responsible for the stewardship of environmental assets. CIWEM's agreed purpose is to develop and promote better and integrated management of the environment; to foster a deeper understanding of water and environmental issues and to enhance the quality of people's lives. This is achieved through CIWEM's Royal Charter, education, training and professional development; dissemination of information; conferences and events; research and publications; contact with Government agencies and other bodies, partnerships with other organisations and the publication of Policy Position Statements (PPS).