I cut into a few oranges planning to serve them for lunch yesterday. But all three of them were way past their prime.
So I used two of them to make Homemade Christmas Potpourri (it takes less than two minutes to make! Did you see the recipe here?) and I used the other one to deodorize my garbage disposal. Yes, really.
Just cut the orange in fourths (or smaller pieces if you have an older garbage disposal — you don’t want to risk hurting your disposal!) and stick it down the garbage disposal, turn it on (while the tap water is running, too!), and let it run for 30 seconds or so until it’s completely ground up and washed down.
(Update: Some of my readers suggested adding some ice and baking soda, too, to further help clean and deodorize your garbage disposal — great idea!)
The orange peel cleans the disposal, kills the odors, and leaves your kitchen smelling all fresh and wonderful — all without using any harsh chemicals or elbow grease!
If you don’t have an orange that needs to be disposed of, you can also just use the orange peel or do the same trick with a lemon or lemon peel.
First, I can second the stories about larger chunks jamming up disposals. Not mine, my mother-in-law’s! She decided to clean out her disposal using orange chunks (or maybe it was lemon, I don’t remember), and only succeeded in jamming it up. It’s never worked right since.
Second, I usually use vinegar and baking soda for my drain cleaning. I use this on my tubs, sinks, and disposal. I just dump in some baking soda, then dump in some plain cheap white vinegar, and let the chemical action work. Wash it all down with hot water from the tap, and voila! Nicer smelling disposal, unclogged drains, and all for super cheap.
(Side note: we don’t use oranges very often. They irritate my ulcer, and nobody else in the family likes them all that much. My daughter — away at college right now — will eat them, but the remainder of the family won’t, so it’s not worth the cost for us.)
Great idea. I usually don’t have extra citrus around, so I freeze white vinegar in ice cubes. Then sent them through the disposal. Clean and deodorized, the garbage disposal smells great. 🙂
We have a community garden that has several grapefruit trees and NOBODY takes the grapefruit except us – we eat them every day and give them away and still have too many! We use them to do the same thing in the sink but I also sprinkle baking soda in the kids tub and give them each a half grapefruit (totally non toxic) and tell them to have fun and they happily clean the tub! go figure!
I put the peel in to make the disposal smell nice but does that really clean or deodorize? I realize citrus fruits have acid but is it really strong enough to deodorize? Garbage disposals are hotbeds of bacterial growth and even though I use mine very little and never for meat, dairy, etc I still think it needs more of a cleaning than a fruit would provide. But as for the freshening smell, I actually tear mine in small pieces and put them in and leave them until the next time I do dishes. I don’t know about anyone else but I only run mine when I have a sink full of water going behind it. Don’t want food particles spewing into the air. And yes, I am a germaphobe. Being a biology major may influenced my opinions.
Does anyone know if this would work with Clementines? I have some that are going bad.
I would suggest you take the little paper sticker off the fruit before you dispose it. Paper is never good for any kind of blade.
I do this all the time with clementines that have gone bad – but I cut them in half, and use them as a scrub on my sink first. I rub it face-down all over the sink, then rinse it with water, then put it down my disposal! It seems like it kills the bacteria in the sink, and everything smells (and looks!) nice and fresh.
Or you could add a cup of baking soda and some ice cubes. Doesn’t smell as good as oranges or lemons but it does get it clean and rid of icky smells that lurk in the disposal.
This is a fantastic, resourceful, and green cleaning idea. You are right Crystal. It is even better than the homemade orange potpourri. Thanks so much for posting.
I’m glad you liked it! 🙂
Love this idea!
We also like to save up the lemons that have been squeezed into tea and use those in the disposal.
we love doing this with the clementine peels that the kids have left over every morning. lemons and limes are good ones, too. even grapefruit peels (cut up small) work to deodorize the disposal. anything to save some money and use up leftover peels!
I would recommend cutting it in smaller pieces, taking stickers off, adding ice (just a little) and some baking soda.
Great tip! I just updated the post with your recommendation!
I do this too, but I like to add ice so it scrubs it at the same time!
Great suggestion!
We don’t have a garbage disposal at our current home but we did at our last house. This trick worked just great. My mom also used to put ice down the garbage disposal occasionally she said it was to sharpen the blades.
I would recommend cutting into smaller pieces. It has been my experience that larger cuts of food will destroy your garbage disposal and cause leaks if you aren’t careful.
I second this. My mother started cramming half lemons into my garbage disposal once to deodorize it, and though I asked her not to (it was an old disposal), she did behind my back anyway. A few minutes later I heard an awful sound, the disposal cut out, and the sink backed up with water. Disposals are not designed to pulverize huge pieces of food, and small chunks of citrus will do the same job of adding a fresh scent.
Great tips — and I’m so sorry about your sink backing up. 🙁