Unfortunately, the sewer pipe is quite far away which is why the saniflo would be needed to pump the waste to the sewer pipe.
Don’t be a wimp, just do what your Amazon driver does; pee in a bottle. Although I don’t suggest you use a recycled apple juice bottle.
Amusingly on a new build in Verbier, the developers put the power connection in place as many people will want to install one after the house is inspected.
Maybe the USA is going to catch up with Europe soon: Why Most European Kitchens Don’t Use Garbage Disposals—And What Americans Should Know - Kitchenfinder
I hope the sewage treatment plant in Verbier can keep up with any increase in the organic load.
Where would they eve buy them? Special import from the USA, or is there actually an illegal market for them here?
They were available in the uk at one time, my aunt and uncle had one.
It was next to useless though as it kept clogging up all the time, like the kitchen equivalent of a saniflo toilet.
Yes, in the 1970s my then-future in-laws had one. They were very aspirational middle class and had recently had a brand new fitted kitchen, not that common back then, including all AEG units (expensive at that time) and the aforementioned waste disposal, which ISTR were banned not long after.
Oh, yes, and they had, and regularly used, a Hostess Trolley. Different times indeed.
Edit: a little digging suggests that they were never actually banned at that time, but they certainly fell out of favour. There is apparently a new law currently being implemented in England to make them illegal as of next year.
If it weren’t for the fact that my aunt and uncle only had the one son and he definitely didn’t marry you I’d think they were the same people.
My aunt in particular had aspirations of grandeur, we were definitely the poor relations.
I used to eat with them several times a week, my own home at that point being somewhat, err, ‘fractured’ and nearly everything was bought from M&S (even the sausages that were a standard on Wednesdays) despite it being some distance away in the city centre and there being multiple closer supermarkets, some even within walking distance. Waitrose wasn’t a thing there back then… She was a lovely person though, don’t get me wrong.
Speaking of American appliances, the thing that surprised me isn’t common here are garbage compactors.
Especially given that we pay for garbage by volume (per bag), a compactor would make perfect sense!
Actually, it’s not just volume in all cases.
Some municipalities have a weight limit per bag too.
As an example, a 17L bag is 3.5Kg, a 35L bag is 7Kg.
To be honest, with all the recycling, and as long as you’re not maxing out on something like disposable nappies (which probably won’t compact much anyway), people really shouldn’t be finding that they are needing so many bags.
The only reason we don’t use the 17L ones is the bin insert is for the 35L ones.
1 Like
I have one! It isn’t electric, it’s manual. Got it at the Migros Brico a couple of decades ago. Hardly ever actually compact for the reasons Tom mentions above.
And kitty-litter means 17l is too small.
It’s difficult to imagine how much rubbish one would have to be generating to make compacting it worthwhile, even where it is charged simply by volume. I mean, even with a family we’re talking what, a couple of 17l bags a week, surely not much more than that? Round here they’re just under a franc each (seems that Zurich is cheaper) so about a hundred per year overall. How much would you be able to compact most of it? 20% reduction, perhaps?
Doesn’t really matter anyway, the amounts we’re talking about are relatively trivial anyway.
I’ve always liked the various pay per use models I’ve encountered over the years, as they really encourage you to recycle, which is free (yeah apart from taxation but…), although of course in some places the separation and trips to the recycling place an be a bit tedious.
As for the cat litter, I have three cats, two of whom use the litter tray almost exclusively at the moment, and one was drinking and peeing litres (got the now-diagnosed diabetes under some control now) until recently, but even then I was probably using only around two or three litres per week, less than that now. So in the overall scheme of things not really that much.
I can only assume you’re not using the clumping type, so you’re having to throw the whole trayful out every time? Always struck me as wasteful and time-consuming, so I’ve always used the clumping type which you just sift the lumps out of, and in a closed tray, of course.
Really? Asking for a friend…
Not around here. You just leave your tax-paid bag out on Tuesday morning and it just disappears.
Same here but on Thursdays.
I don’t see why they wouldn’t. Certainly they do in parts of France, where they have wheelie bins with an RFID chip, automatically weighed by the truck’s lifter mechanism, you get a charge per lift, and a charge per weight, so it’s encouraging you to not only generate less waste but to limit the pickups to those times the bin is completely full.
That’s the case at my place in Alsace, for sure, but they also provide (free) bags for all the recycling, which does not need to be sorted and another wheelie bin for green waste, which is not charged for. Pickups alternate every week. Bottles you need to take to the various bottle banks in several villages around, often at or next to supermarket parking.
There are a few. Here’s one, translated:
Maximum weight for garbage bags:
17l = 3kg
, 35l = 6kg
, 60l = 10kg
, 110l = 20kg. Garbage bags that are too heavy will not be collected!
Some places let you put the cat litter in with your green waste if it’s 100% biodegradeble.
We buy a clumping one made of cellulose fibre. Added to kitchen green waste, it makes the most fantastic compost for the garden!
1 Like
Clumping, but three cats.
We looked at composting but not only do you need the right litter and:
Always remove cat feces before composting. Cat feces may contain parasites, especially Toxoplasma gondii, which home compost piles rarely reach the temperature needed to destroy. Dispose of feces in regular household waste, not compost
Remove urine clumps, since they can over-fertilize and may contain pharmaceutical residues. If adding urine clumps, do so sparingly
Yes, we do that.