History
The garbage disposal was invented in 1927 by John W. Hammes, an architect working in Racine, Wisconsin. After eleven years of development, his InSinkErator company put his disposer on the market in 1940.
Hammes' claim is disputed, as General Electric introduced a garbage disposal unit in 1935.
In many cities in the United States in the 1930s and the 1940s the municipal sewage system had regulations prohibiting running food waste (garbage) into the system. InSinkErator spent considerable effort, and was highly successful in convincing many localities to rescind these prohibitions.
Many localities in North America mandated the use of disposers. For many years, garbage disposals were illegal in New York City because of a perceived threat of damage to the city's sewer system. After a 21-month study with the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, the ban was rescinded in 1997 by local law 1997/071 which amended section 24-518.1, NYC Administrative Code.
In 2008, the city of Raleigh, North Carolina attempted a ban on the replacement and installation of garbage disposals which also extended to outlying towns sharing the city's municipal sewage system, but rescinded the ban one month later.
Read more about this topic: Garbage Disposal Unit
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“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
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—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)