Kitchen cleanup is a whole lot easier—and your trash can a lot less stinky—when you have a garbage disposal available to help with food waste. Keep your garbage disposer performing its best with these two easy tips.

1. Size Matters

Your garbage disposal is designed to grind up food debris, not giant chunks. That means rinsing plates or dumping old soup into your garbage disposer is usually just fine. Your appliance can easily handle these types of smaller food particles. However, your garbage disposal is not designed to take oversized chunks or other large items. So the next time you discover a spoiled onion in the pantry or you need to get rid of leftover casserole that’s past its prime, think twice. At least break or cut it into smaller pieces before putting it into the garbage disposal, or you could end up facing a messy, frustrating blockage.

2. The Lemon Trick

Tired of your garbage disposal smelling a bit off? There’s an easy solution. Just peel a lemon, toss it in, and turn on your garbage disposer. This will help clean your garbage disposal and leave it smelling fresh.

For more maintenance tips, or to get professional garbage disposal repair, just call All Brands Appliance Repair. We are standing by to meet local homeowners’ appliance repair needs. Put our 46+ years’ experience to work by calling now!