in America that is a very big deal you would have been shook.

I'm curious what this means. I'm in my mid-30s, grew up in the US, and have never had a garbage disposal either. My childhood home had a garden and a compost pile, so that's where food waste always went. Then I moved into apartment life. The only time I ever saw a garbage disposal was when my ex's mom insisted that we had one in our apartment (which was a condo my ex was renting from her.) She said, "It's under the sink!"

Yeah. It was under the sink: still in a box, uninstalled. Even after she learned that, she still didn't bother having someone install it. That was the only time in my life where there was (technically) a garbage disposal in the place I lived.