If you regularly prepare food in your kitchen, rinse-off dirty dishes before placing them in a dishwasher, the chances are that your sink has seen it all: bread crumbs, dishrags, food leftovers, etc. I wish I knew a magic tip to keep your sink and garbage disposal always clean (unless you don’t use it). But I don’t.
However, I DO have a few smelly garbage disposal solutions.
Let’s be honest: who would want to stand at a sink full of dirty dishes and a smelly disposal?
I wouldn’t. Any volunteers?
Simple Homemade Odor Removal Solutions
We live in Florida and have one lemon and two tangerine trees growing in our backyard. So, needless to say, we have plenty…
1. Citrus peels.
Every time you are about to toss orange peels (or any other citrus) into the trash, drop a couple of pieces in your garbage disposal, and run it with plenty of cold water for 10-15 seconds.
2. Ice cubes, lemon, and salt.
Drop in a cut-up lemon, some salt and a few ice cubes. Run it without water for 15 seconds and then leave it for a while to do the work. The lemon deodorizes, and the ice and salt clean away residue.
3. Baking soda and vinegar.
Pour some baking soda down the kitchen drain (I usually use 1/4 to 1/2 cup)
Pour approximately one cup of white vinegar down the disposal, and let it sit there for 5-10 minutes. The mixture will fizz and bubble, so you know it’s doing something…
Run boiling hot water down the disposal (I usually use a full teakettle or medium size pot).
4. Lemon juice ice cubes.
Have I mentioned that we live in Florida and have our own citrus trees? Every season (December-January), we make our own lemon juice and make ice cubes with it. It’s so easy to make refreshing drinks just by dropping a few lemon ice cubes into water.
It’s the same cleaning method as #2, except you don’t have to cut lemons. Every time you make a lemon drink, drop a few ice cubes down the disposal and run it for 10-15 seconds.
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