I don't think we have them in Australia, I have never seen a garbage disposal unit.
Yes, we do. A garbage disposal unit sits in your sink drain. I don't particularly like them. They just make tooooo much noise for me.
To me it seems they aren't very popular over here. Could be wrong but I've never seen one or known anyone with one here.
I've had several houses that had them....I just choose not to use them. I'm the same with dishwashers....I'd rather do it myself.
Not me. I love automatic dishwashers. They can wash a whole pile of dirty dishes while using less water than you would use doing them by hand.
I haven't liked any dishwashers that I've used; I usually end up washing dishes by hand to remove stubborn food residues after a cycle in the dishwasher. Our current dishwasher also doesn't rinse things properly during a wash-rinse-dry cycle, so dishes remain slippery from detergent residue unless I put it onto a rinse cycle after it's already washed, rinsed and dried the dishes, and the detergent gives me dermatitis if I handle the dishes before they're properly rinsed. We have very soft water here and we've tried using rinse-aid, but it hasn't helped.
When I was repairing our clothes washing machine, I read that nearly all modern clothes washers suck at rinsing clothes to remove detergent at the end of a wash, and that it's because they're awarded efficiency points based on how little water they use, but aren't awarded anything for how effectively they rinse, and the same thing is probably going on with dishwashers.
That may be why I like mine so well, then. I have a twelve year old Maytag Jet Clean with Quiet Pack.
Also, I sometimes rinse the dishes before I load them into the dishwasher if they have something stuck on them, even though I know that probably wastes water.
Thanks for letting me know that I should try to hold onto it for as long as possible rather than replacing it.
We are thinking about replacing our countertops with granite and we could replace our dishwasher at the same time, but now I have a good reason not to.
I also have an old washing machine and dryer that clean and dry clothes very well, apparently much better than new ones would do, so I plan to keep them for as long as possible.