Garbage Disposals Are Allowed In Raleigh, Again
April 9th, 2008 Categories: Odds and Ends
The Raleigh City Counsel passed a resolution about a month ago to ban garbage disposals. Yes, you read that sentence correctly. They even went so far as to impose a $25,000 fine for anyone caught with an “illegal” garbage disposal. Well, fear not, it appears that the ban on garbage grinders will soon be repealed.
The reason given by the City Council for the ban was to reduce the number of sewer clogs and resulting overflows. It’s funny that they all acknowledge the number one cause of public sewer overflows is grease and cooking oils being poured into the system, but they went about implementing the garbage disposal ban without researching whether there was a link.
They seem to have come to the conclusion that if there were no garbage disposals, no one would pour grease down the drains. That doesn’t even make sense. If someone is irresponsible enough to pour grease down their drain, did they think it would stop if they took away all the garbage disposals?
Earlier this week, the president of InSinkErator, a leading manufacturer of garbage disposals, presented results of studies to the City Counsel that clearly showed no link exists between garbage disposals and sewer clogs exists. This is embarrassing. The City Council’s only evidence in favor of the ban was some grainy video of a camera inserted into Raleigh sewer pipes. Yuck! The video showed that some pipes were clogged. It just did nothing at all to indicate the cause.
The guy from InSinkErator has expert witnesses, professors of food science, and results from an exhaustive study os causes of sewer back ups. Would have loved to have been at the meeting. Matlock or Perry Mason would have been proud of the defense. The bottom line is that it looks like garbage disposals all across the city of Raleigh will get a reprieve. The City Council is expected to take up the issue again next week and a unanimous vote to overturn the ban is expected.
I’ve mentioned the ban to a couple of dozen home buyer clients in the past few weeks. Quite a few were from out of town and just kind of looked at me like they were waiting for the punch line to a bad joke. I’ll be very relieved not to have to tell anyone that they cannot have a garbage disposal when they buy a home in Raleigh.
