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Comment by eru | Hacker News Reader

We have a Miele dishwasher (and washing machine).

It works really well, but it's not magic.

Eg it still benefits from adding a bit of powder in the special compartment that opens immediately (or alternatively, directly in the body of the dishwasher).

You also have to clean the Miele's dirt trap every once in a while. I'm informed American dishwashers have different arrangements that don't need cleaning?

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It has a filter with a spinning blade slightly in front of it - a macerator - that chops up pieces of food until they are small enough to fit through the holes.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Appliantology/Kitchenaid-Dishwash...

In the US, the dishwasher discharge hose is often piped into the garbage disposal unit under the sink.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_disposal_unit

Looks like those units are really uncommon in Europe.

These are actually banned in most countries of Europe by laws and regulations because fatty foods lead to the buildup of fatbergs in pipes and anything that's not water and feces is prime rat food.

I don't get why the USA don't ban these, but then complain about rat infestations at the same time. JFC.

There aren't huge rat problems in the US, and having to clean out the sink drain filter multiple times per day is a disgusting waste of time.

I split my time between Germany and the US and the lack of a garbage disposal in the kitchen sink is a constant annoyance. (It's nothing to do with fatty foods; the reasoning provided seems like a red herring.)

> There aren't huge rat problems in the US

New York's rat problem is world-(in)famous, as is San Francisco's.

> and having to clean out the sink drain filter multiple times per day is a disgusting waste of time.

Yeah, if you're peeling onions and potatoes over the sink instead of a bio-waste container. Do it like Germans do (in fact, if you look up your community's Abfallsatzung you may be required to) and you won't need to clean that thing more often than once every few months.

The hundreds of millions of homes in the US not in NYC and SF also ~all have garbage disposals and no major rat problems. (NYC banned garbage disposals until the '90s when it was lifted, and its rat population predates that by over a century.).

I don't ever peel anything over the sink, it's just the small particles of stuff from washing that fills up the filter. This isn't a "you're holding it wrong".

I get the impression it's a similar objection to air conditioning: it's regarded as foreign, atypical, and unnecessary luxury, so plausible justifications about why it's bad are trotted out.

One of my favorite parts of visiting asia is discovering what fun new things have been electrified and automated. It seems europeans tend to have the opposite culture, and regard using electricity as vaguely sinful.

> I don't ever peel anything over the sink, it's just the small particles of stuff from washing that fills up the filter.

That's still weird. Standard German kitchen sinks have a very coarse filter [1], it's almost impossible to clog these up with anything but potato and onion peel segments.

[1] https://www.obi.de/edelstahlspuelen/pyramis-einbauspuele-ca-...

Here in Singapore those sink garbage macerator are not common, and I haven't seen them elsewhere in Asia so far.

(I'm considering whether it would make sense for us to install one.)

But in no country that I visited without those macerators do people clean their sinks multiple times a day. Are you sure you aren't 'holding it wrong'?

In EU we typically have separate waste bin for food leftovers that I expect would go to this garbage disposal in kitchen sink. So if you put the food leftovers to separate garbage bin, there's pretty much nothing that will end up in drain filter to be cleared. It's just different routine. I think you also misread the response about the fatty foods. I don't feel it was related to fatty food in USA, it was more in a sense that if you shred fat leftovers, it will eventually clog some pipe down the line.

I went jogging in Brooklyn (Williamsburg) and stepped on a huge rat. Poor dude was just having breakfast in one of the garbage heaps on the sidewalk. Never experienced that in Europe before.

In Utrecht The Netherlands it's common for bars and restaurants in the old town to have cats that stay with the location. Locations would change hands, and the cats stayed at that location.

I used to live there and the rodent problem is real. There was a great book about it a few years back where they wrote up a little piece on each cat at each location. And yes, I had a cat in my house because without a cat you get mice.

Paris is also notorious for its rat problem. To say that Europe doesn't have rats is just silly.

> ... and having to clean out the sink drain filter multiple times per day is a disgusting waste of time.

What are you doing to your sink?

Also uncommon in Asia and Australia.

Heh. When reading that Wikipedia article, they only referenced European (and UK) countries in their "Adoption and Bans" section. That kinda made me view the entire world as "The US or EU/UK", and—with that anchoring—I assumed you must live "in the other one".

So, yeah. I guess those things are a quirk of the US only.

Quite a lot of online commentary is framed as "US or EU", or sometimes "US, EU and Asia". There are tens of other countries out there with hundreds of millions of people.

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