InSinkErator Evolution 250 Premium Food Waste Disposal Review
The clever way to deal with food waste
Verdict
For those who don’t want to mess around with food bins or scraping waste into a regular bin, the InSinkErator Evolution 250 Premium Food Waste Disposal sits under your sink and grinds up food waste. You need a fair amount of cupboard space to accommodate this model; but it’s convenient to use, quiet and powerful.
Pros
- Powerful
- Deals with most food waste
- Quiet
Cons
- Takes up a lot of room
Availability
- UKRRP: £518
Key Features
- Grinds foodA three-stage grinder breaks down organic waste and pushes it out through your regular drain
Introduction
More common in the US, food waste disposal units should be more of a thing on these shores. The InSinkErator Evolution 250 Premium Food Waste Disposal unit does away with the worry about what you do with food waste, grinding and flushing it down the drain for recovery at the water-processing plant, where it can become fertiliser among other things.
Built with safety in mind, this waste disposal system is easy to use and handles most types of waste brilliantly. You’ll just need enough space under your sink to house it.
Design and Features
- Bladeless design is safe to use
- Simple button control
- Takes up a fair amount of under-sink space
The InSinkErator Evolution 250 Premium Food Waste Disposal unit is designed to fit into the cupboard under your kitchen sink. It’s compatible with the vast majority of sinks, and the main requirements are that you have enough space to home it (the unit is 344mm tall) and access to power. If you have a fairly compact under-sink cupboard, expect for much of the space to be consumed by the InSinkErator unit. My sink has a slightly more convoluted waste pipe layout, as I also test washing machines here and need additional drainage points; for a standard kitchen, you’ll have a neater layout.
This model also has an optional inlet for a dishwasher, so you can send the waste from your cleaning through to the grinder.
Once installed, there isn’t much that’s different on the sink side initially. There’s a standard pull-out strainer designed to catch bits of food and items that you don’t want to fall down into the waste disposal unit. InSinkErator provides a chrome cover for this, although I don’t think it’s the most attractive.
Pull out the strainer, and you’ll find a rubber plug beneath. This lets water through to drain as normal but catches and slows food debris, making it easier to feed the Evolution 250 at the right pace.
You can remove this rubber plug for cleaning, and you’ll see that there are no blades on display. Instead, the InSinkErator Evolution 250 Premium Food Waste Disposal uses a three-stage grinding process, which is both more efficient and safer to use.
Using the InSinkErator Evolution 250 Premium Food Waste Disposal is easy. There’s an air switch to turn the unit on and off, which can either be mounted under the cupboard or, as I have it, in the spare tap cut-out on the sink.
To use the waste disposal unit, simply have cold water running, then slowly feed items into the running grinder. You can add pretty much anything organic into the disposal unit, including most peel and leftovers, small bones, seeds and fruit pits. In fact, InSinkErator recommends small bones and fruit pits are used regularly to help clean out the inside of the grinder.
While lower models can’t deal with fibrous materials, the Evolution range has a been designed to cope with more fibrous materials, including celery and corn husks, plus you should grind coarse material such as bones. You can read InSinkErator’s more detailed guide.
If the unit does become stuck, there’s a wrench in the box to help you access the unit underneath to loosen the mess and get it running again – just follow the instructions and unplug the unit before you start.
Once you can hear that it’s only the flow of water running through the InSinkErator Evolution 250 Premium Food Waste Disposal, you should turn it off and leave the cold tap running for a few seconds more. InSinkErator says that this unit uses around 5 litres of water per person per day, and uses just 2-3kWh of power per year (that’s less than 60p per year of electricity).
Performance
- Works quickly
- Deals with most food waste simply
To test the InSinkErator Evolution 250 Premium Food Waste Disposal, I used it over a period of weeks on a variety of food sources. These included vegetable peel, coffee beans, eggshells, small chicken bones, left-over noodles and cherry pits.
I slowly pushed the mess through the rubber plug, letting the waste disposal unit grind up the items finely before pushing them out through the regular drain.
Using the unit was simple; despite all the mess going through the InSinkErator Evolution 250, there was no funky smells from the unit and, looking into the main cavity, there wasn’t any mess left behind.
I measured the waste disposal unit at a maximum of 53.8dB. I could clearly hear it whirring away, but it’s far from intrusive.
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Should you buy it?
If you want an easier way to deal with food waste, this waste disposal unit can grind almost everything up and send it down your regular drain.
If you don’t have a lot of space under your sink or you compost much of your waste, this may not be the right product for you.
Final Thoughts
Dealing with food waste can be a messy business and quite fiddly for those of us who have council provided food bags. That’s not to mention how smelly food waste can get. The InSinkErator Evolution 250 Premium Food Waste Disposal makes life easier: this powerful unit grinds up the bulk of your organic waste, taking it out through the standard drain where it’s recovered and put to good use. If you have the room, then this product will change how you deal with food waste.
How we test
Unlike other sites, we test every carpet cleaner we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Tested with real-world food waste in real-world situations for fair comparisons.
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FAQs
It can handle most food waste, including peelings, small bones and fruit pits.
Don’t put in anything that isn’t food, and it’s not recommended that you pour oil or fat.
Ground food goes out through the drain, where it’s reclaimed at the water-processing plant and can be used in fertiliser.
Full specs
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Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
