Don't Put This Type Of Seafood Down Your Sink Drain - Tasting Table

"Inside, spinning impellers use centrifugal force to mash food waste against a grind ring, breaking down soft organic matter into smaller chunks that can flow through plumbing. While great at shredding up carrot peels, deconstructing the heels of bread, or pulverizing the end of a bowl of (cooked) chili beans, there's a long list of seemingly biodegradable materials and food scraps that a garbage disposal just can't deal with."

"Shells are these creatures' bones, and they are all made mostly of chitin, a tough structural compound designed by nature to protect the soft little creature inside. If you would not toss a handful of rocks into your blender, you should not send a pile of oyster shells into your disposal. The machine might spin, but it will never win."

"Across North America, Indigenous communities once created enormous shell middens - layered mounds of discarded oyster, clam, and even today's endangered abalone shells - which not only didn't biodegrade over time, but reshaped shorelines, becoming part of the coastal landscape. This extreme structural fortitude is why they're incompatible with the machinery of the garbage disposal."

Garbage disposals function like blenders, using spinning impellers and centrifugal force to break down soft organic matter into smaller chunks that flow through plumbing. However, they cannot process shellfish shells, including shrimp, crab, lobster, mussels, and clams, because shells are made primarily of chitin, a tough structural compound designed to protect the creature inside. Shells are essentially the bones of these creatures and are as hard as rocks. Indigenous communities across North America created enormous shell middens that never biodegraded and reshaped coastal landscapes, demonstrating the extreme structural durability of shellfish shells that makes them incompatible with garbage disposal machinery.

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