Are we talking about garbage disposals located in the sink or some other type? I interpret some of these responses to interpret "garbage disposal" as some sort of area to dispose of trash, but in the US a garbage disposal is a mechanism usually located in one of the basins in the kitchen sink that tears up food to be sent out through the homes plumbing.

While it's difficult to explain negatives (why it wasn't popular abroad), after a bit of digging I believe there 2 main reasons it is fairly widespread in the US.

1. The garbage disposal was first invented and marketed in the United States and took time to spread
2. Building codes have been modified in the US to require garbage disposals in some cases

The current best story of the invention of the garbage disposal is that of John Hammes, an American from Wisconsin. His patent for the early garbage disposal can still be found on the USPTO site as Patent 2012680. This product was then marketed as the InSinkErator, which is still sold today.

According to a section of a book with a blurb on the company history, Insinkerator was facing national competition by the likes of General Electric, Whirlpool, and others in the 1950s, but there is still not yet any mention of international expansion. At the same time, there's already evidence of a decent bit of marketing, including this ad in Life magazine in the 1960's. The same book mentions that international expansion was only beginning to accelerate in the 1980s.

One other website on the history of the garbage disposal has suggested that they were required by some US municipalities in building codes. I haven't been able to dig into the codes for those specifics municipalities, but the town of Racine, Wisconsin where (surprise!) the garbage disposal was invented has required it in "every dwelling of four or more units" since 1965. Marysville, Michigan, Harper Woods, Michigan, Port Huron, Michigan have similar codes.

The device was invented in 1927 but patent for the sink garbage disposal was only granted in 1935 (US 2012680, Hammes, John W., "Garbage disposal device", published 22 May 1933, issued 27 August 1935) and were only put on the market in 1938 (see: "Grist for the Daily Grind") but the company spent most of the war building defense parts instead of garbage disposals so introduction of it really only took off in the building boom after WWII (see:"The History of InSinkErator in Racine Wisconsin" ).

However it took considerable effort to change local laws that banned putting food waste down the drain. The sellers of garbage disposals hence had to lobby individual towns and municpalities showing them studies that they would not put undo burden on sewage systems (see: "Only in New York: Garbage Disposers, Banned, Stir Debate" ). In fact as noted in article cited above in post war America:

after the war they [Insinkerator] turned their attention to convincing cities and towns to allow — and often mandate — the use of disposers.

Even since then they are occasionally banned in cities with older infrastructure, as the article noted above describes, though the ban in NY was lifted in 1997 (see: "Is it OK ... to use a food waste disposer".

More and more bans of this sort are being lifted as an attempt to divert waste from landfills, a case in point, in Stockholm the fee that users had to pay has been removed for environmental reasons: i.e. Sweden makes biogas from municipal sewage, and the cost of transporting food waste in trucks is lowered. (see: "Slopad avgift för avfallskvarn"). Likewise in Canada bans are being lifted because of biogas production (see: "Everything but the Kitchen Sink: Will advances in anaerobic digestion herald the return of the garburator?")

So the answer to the question is twofold: they were introduced in the US (and in fact not sold outside of the US until 1968 (see History of Insikerator.) and there were often regulations meant to protect older infrastructure that banned them. This was not a problem in much of the US, as the infrastructure being built in post war US suburban boom, when the food disposal unit was being introduced, was new and lobbying by the US based makers of the device meant widespread adoption was possible.

Hi all,

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