I grew up with and around them but they’re generally not a thing here in Japan. I’m trying to compost all my organics and such anyway and most things can go into compost.

They seem more common now if anything

I’m not sure what extra cleaning you’re talking about but if you use them once in a while they don’t stink

We have one, I like it. Never gross smelling, keeps the drains clear, seems to help the dishwasher run better.

I find they’re pretty ubiquitous where I’m from. I had one in every apartment I’ve lived in. I don’t have one in my house though.

I know a lot of people will just dump a lot of food waste in there. After struggling with it, I started just throwing out all of the waste and using the garbage disposal for the small bits of food that would normally get caught in the sink strainer.

Now that I’m back to living in a place with no garbage disposal, I do miss it a little. The sink strainer is a bit gross to handle. But it’s also pretty nice not having to maintain the garbage disposal so it all evens out.

I had one once, here in Australia, in a house my family lived in for a few years. It was novelty as I’d never seen one before or since.I seem to recall thinking it was very useful but for some reason, even though there’s really no chance of it happening, I always had like intrusive thoughts of sticking my fingers in there. Also my grandpa stayed with us for a little while and he kept throwing nectarine cores in there which it really couldn’t handle even though we asked him not to. It also used to make a deafening noise like the awakening of Cthulhu at rhe best of times, hearing it sound like it was about to spectacularly break was really distressing. I don’t know how legal it was to have that thing, they just don’t seem to exist here in Australia so it was very odd that this place had it.

They were never a thing in Europe.

The sewage treatment is not built to handle that kind of stuff. The sewage pipes aren’t too happy about it, either. I might flush some carbs down the toilet. The poop-munching bacteria at the treatment plant get a nice growth boost from it. Grease not only clogs your own pipes, but causes issues for the whole city. I think it’s possible to get fined for it if you’d get caught starting a year or two back.

Food waste goes in the trash or compost. If it goes in the trash it’s burned at industrial temperatures to burn clean. The heat is used for district heating networks.

They shouldn’t make a gross smelly area under your sink. It sounds like yours was leaking.

I use mine all the time, much easier than dealing with a nasty sink strainer as I just spray down the sink into the disposal and run it. Also keeps the trash from smelling.

If it’s being smelly under the sink, it’s broken or not installed right. If it’s being smelly from the drain hole sink side then you’re not cleaning it from time to time (Which is as easy as dropping in some cleaner and running it every other month or so).

I’m actually looking to upgrade mine so it can handle some bones

I went out of my way to get one installed in a house that didn’t have one. So, yeah.

If yours is making a mess under the sink, it’s either broken or installed wrong.

Lol what? They are ubiquitous as ever.

I have never not had one

Didn’t grow up with one, but consider it standard now. There should be an organic stream to waste disposal. Much more green to send your plate scrapings to the treatment plant than to wrap them up in plastic and bury it in a landfill.

I found a solid metal strainer, not mesh for my sink. Holds up forever and much easier to clean. Even if you have a disposal, its not great to just dump everything down the drain [citation needed]. You especially want to catch things like small bones and forks.

The disposals seem common enough, a lot older/outdated homes don’t have them. I have no idea what they’re putting into new houses and renovations.

Never had an under the sink mess like you describe, maybe yours just had a small leak?

I had one in most of the apartments I lived in, but I was always having problems with them and needing to contact the landlord to fix it (some of this was my fault but still). Now that I have my own place I’m not going to install one, I don’t want to spend money if the result is mostly to get to maintain yet another thing, just to avoid shaking a drain trap over the trash every once in a while.

Most garbage disposals just cause more trouble that they’re worth since they turn small chunks of food into paste and that’s more likely to stick to the insides of drains and cause more clogs than the small chunks, as long as your drains are properly maintained. And a halfway decent strainer will keep out the larger pieces. It’s also not good for your city drains and makes sewage processing more expensive. Better to use composting for your food scraps if you can.