Easy way to clean your garbage disposal

First off I want to thank everyone for reading my blog and giving me such nice feedback! Yesterday I also got my first request from a very sweet friend of mine, Meg for a way to make an organic enzyme cleaner for her garbage disposal and dishwasher. Ask and you shall receive! I hope this helps you Meg. :)  I have researched both today and there are a couple of really cool things that I'd like to tell you about with my findings. I really wish today I could do a tutorial on how to make enzymes to clean with but I need to get supplies first. I think sometime next week that will be coming. I do though have around the house many things and ways to clean the garbage disposal quickly and easily plus a few tips on how to keep it running at its full potential. There is no better way to save money than to properly care for and maintain the things you own so here is what I found. The most surprising fact I've learned today is that using your garbage disposal for everything is actually bad for the environment. To throw your food out and let it decompose in a landfill is better than sending it into our water supply. This is called nutrient pollution. Nutrient pollution helps create dead zones. Dead zones are low oxygen areas in the ocean. If you'd like to know more about dead zones here is a link for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology). In fact, I've learned we have them here off the coast of Texas as well, eek! Long explanation short one way dead zones are created are from our own water treatment plants. They can't handle the amount of junk (this includes chemicals as well) thrown at them and in turn our own water treatment areas (which are suppose to be cleaning our water!) are becoming huge polluters to our oceans. If you don't like throwing food away in the trash you can always compost. Which, I will be doing later this year once we move and have more space! So lets get to it, cleaning your garbage disposal for very little cost and time! Every week I throw ice cubes, lemon juice and salt down the disposal to loosen things up and keep it clean. No big trick but it does help keep it smelling nice and working great. I would suggest though if the odor problem is bothering you that you use a real lemon and use both the peel and lemon pieces. If you do really want to take it a step further though and make an actually cleaner here is the best one.
Drain Cleaner:

1/4 of a cup of salt
2 cups of distilled white vinegar
1 cup of water

Put it all in a pot on the stove and bring it to a boil. When it reaches a boil turn it off and add two drops of dish soap. Then, pour it all down the drain (while still hot). Let that go for 20 minutes while you bring another pot of water to a boil. After the twenty minutes are up pour the next boiling pot of water down the drain.

FINAL COST BREAKDOWN:
Water: free
Two cups of Distilled white vinegar: (I bought the entire gal of 1.60)  0.20 cents
One fourth cup of Salt: (Container cost 2.09)  0.12 cents

In total it would cost you 0.32 cents to create this drainer cleaner which beats out buying a 10.00 bottle of chemically laden liquid lightning or a 4.00 bottle of drain-o in the future!
I like this recipe and I've done it in the past. I have never had to use drain-o down my kitchen sink so I'd say it is great to use to help maintain your drain.