Pull the Ole Nintendo on Your Garbage Disposal

Pull the Ole Nintendo on Your Garbage Disposal before you begin, make sure you get under the sink and unplug the disposal unit itself (Many sinks have an outlet underneath them, just open the door and poke around for it.). If you can’t find that, flip the circuit breaker that gives power to the disposal. Seriously. You can’t skip this step because, if for some reason it turns on while you’re removing any stuck-on food in there, you will regret it.

Once the power is off, duck under the sink again and find a button underneath the cylinder that houses the disposal mechanism. This is the reset button. Push it. You should hear a click to let you know you’ve done it.

Next, see if you can locate any debris stuck inside the mouth of the disposal. This is when you need to be absolutely certain that no power is going to it. Remove everything you can.

Flip the power back on and check if it’s working. If so, congratulations. If not, there is still one last thing you can do: manually dislodge what’s keeping the blades stuck. For this method, you’ll need an Allen wrench/hex key. There is a small socket in the middle of the bottom of the disposal unit the key can fit into. Turn the key either way—this is essentially moving the grinders of the unit manually. Turn back and forth a couple times to ensure you got what was keeping the grinders stuck and try flipping the switch again. This should take care of it.