By SemperScreen®. We own residential and commercial real estate properties across the United States, and we built the permanent sink screen for our own buildings before we sold it to anyone else.
You've thought about ditching the disposal more times than not. So, the disposal is out and there is a three and a half inch hole in the bottom of your sink. Now, what to install after removing a garbage disposal is a choice between three things: an open flange, a removable basket, or a permanent sink screen. Plumbing code eliminates the first one. The other two differ on a single question, which is whether the person using the sink can take the part out.
Do you have to install anything, or can you leave the opening bare?
You have to install something. Model plumbing code requires it.
The 2021 International Residential Code states that sinks "shall be provided with waste outlets not less than 1 1/2 inches (38 mm) in diameter" and that "a strainer, crossbar or other device shall be provided to restrict the clear opening of the waste outlet."1 The 2021 International Plumbing Code carries the same requirement for sinks at Section 422.2.2 Jurisdictions on the Uniform Plumbing Code family reach the same place by different wording: Minnesota's adopted rule states plainly that waste outlets "shall be provided with an approved strainer."3
So an open drain opening is not one of your options, and neither is leaving the disposal's mounting flange in place with nothing in it. Something has to restrict the opening.
Two things worth knowing before you check your own jurisdiction. First, the section number moves between code editions. What is 422.2 in the 2021 IPC was 418.2 in the 2012 through 2018 editions, and cities that adopted an older base edition still cite the old number. Second, your local authority may have amended the model text. Look up your adopted edition rather than assuming the national number applies.
SemperScreen® recommends that you always refer to local building codes when modifying a building's plumbing system.
Why the choice matters more than it looks
The disposal was the appliance manufacturing the problem downstream. It ground food into fine particles and sent them into the drain line, where they cooled, settled and combined with grease. Removing it stops the grinding (and the headache of calling a plumber to fix a frozen or broken one). What you put in the opening decides whether the whole food scraps that follow go into the pipe instead.
That matters past your own P-trap. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lists inappropriate materials sent to sewers, specifically fats, oils and grease along with household products marketed as flushable, among the leading causes of sanitary sewer overflows and blockages.4 The agency's stated control measures include limiting what enters the system in the first place.4
Which is the entire argument for the part you are about to buy. It is the last thing standing between a kitchen and everything downstream of it, and it only works when it is actually in the sink.
What the job takes
For a standard retrofit into the opening a disposal left behind, you need the drain body itself, a rubber gasket, a cardboard friction ring, a locknut, a tailpiece, and a P-trap. Consumables are plumber's putty and slip-joint pliers, plus a spud or basket wrench for the locknut.5 Some newer sink materials prohibit plumber's putty and are labeled to that effect; those take a non-water-based silicone instead.5
Two prerequisites. The opening a disposal was mounted in is three and a half inches, which is the standard size, so most replacement hardware fits without modification.6 And the disposal outlet sat lower than a plain tailpiece does, so the P-trap may need to be re-aligned or a piece of tailpiece extension added once the disposal is gone. If you have not pulled the unit yet, the full removal procedure is in our step by step guide to changing a garbage disposal to a regular drain.
The three options, compared
Option one: the flange alone
Some people finish the job by fitting a decorative flange over the opening and leaving it open beneath. It looks finished. It restricts nothing, and it does not meet the code requirement above.1,2 It also puts you exactly where the disposal left you, with whole food scraps going straight into a line that has spent years accumulating a coating.
Rule this one out.
Option two: a removable basket
The common choice. A drain body seats in the opening on a bed of plumber's putty, a basket sits inside it, and the basket lifts out to be emptied.5 It satisfies the code requirement, it is available in every hardware store, and a competent DIYer can fit one in under an hour.
The problem is in the name. It comes out. In an owned house where one family uses the sink and cares about the drain, that is not much of a problem. In a rental, a short-term rental, a shared kitchen, or a break room with multiple people using it, the basket gets lifted out to drain a pot, set on the counter, and never goes back. Sometimes it is thrown away with the scraps. From the moment it leaves the sink, the drain is unprotected and nobody notices until the line backs up.
Vertical publishers covering disposal removal treat this as the default endpoint, describing the basket as the part that replaces the disposal's sink flange.6 It is a reasonable default. It is just not the only one.
Option three: a permanent sink screen
A permanent sink screen seats in the same three and a half inch opening, meets the same code requirement, and is fixed to the drain body. It does not lift out. Food scraps collect in the screen and get scooped into the trash, and there is no state in which the sink is running unprotected because someone removed a part.
The SemperScreen® permanent sink screen is the only non-removable permanent sink screen on the market. Where it differs mechanically is in the double-walled construction: the perforation surface area exceeds that of the connecting pipe, so the screen is not the flow restriction the phrase "permanent screen" tends to suggest.
| Flange only | Removable Strainer | SemperScreen® permanent sink screen | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meets IRC P2714.1 / IPC 422.2 | No | Yes | Yes |
| Can be removed by an occupant | N/A | Yes | No |
| Protects the line when nobody is thinking about it | No | Only while it is in the sink | Always |
| Material | Varies | Varies | Type 304 stainless steel, polished |
| Fits a standard 3½ inch drain | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Certification | None | Varies | Tested and COMPLIED with ASME A112.18.2-2020 / CSA B125.2-20 |
| Retrofit time | Minutes | Under an hour | ~15 minutes per drain, no plumbing modifications |
| Cleaning | N/A | Lift out and empty | Just scoop it out! |
Will food sit in it and start to smell?
No more than it does in any drain, and less than it does in a disposal.
This is the objection that stops people, so it is worth being direct about the mechanics. A disposal holds wet ground food in a chamber under the sink between uses, which is where disposal odor actually comes from. A screen holds visible scraps at the surface, in the open, where they are rinsed every time you run the tap and where you can see that they need emptying.
The scooping itself is the part people expect to dislike and then do not. It takes a few seconds, it happens at the sink you are already standing at, and the alternative it replaces is not "nothing." The alternative is periodically plunging a backed-up sink or waiting for a plumber. Property owners who have made this trade consistently describe it as the easier of the two.
If you want the scraps out of the kitchen entirely rather than into the trash, composting them is the natural next step, and the screen is what gets them out of the water in the first place.
What it costs
Hardware first. A quality removable assembly with a durable finish starts around $50, and Family Handyman's guidance is that spending less than that generally buys a finish and a stopper mechanism that will not last.5 Complete drain kits including the tailpiece and P-trap run roughly $20 to $60 in brass or stainless.7
Labor next. If you are hiring it out, a basic sink drain replacement with no pipe relocation runs about $120 to $180, which covers roughly an hour of labor plus parts, at 2026 plumber rates of $75 to $150 per hour.7 A dedicated basket replacement is quoted at $100 to $175 with a plumber, or $30 to $75 done yourself.8 Angi puts full drain replacement at $225 to $1,200 once related work like corroded pipe or cabinet damage enters the picture.9
Now the comparison you are actually making. Putting the disposal back is not free either: Angi puts professional garbage disposal installation at $150 to $950.9 That is the recurring version of the cost, because the disposal is a motor with a service life, and it will be quoted again. (Check your warranty, if it is out of warranty, you may be at risk to pay the full replacement cost, noting that some new 1/3 hp disposers come with a two-year warranty while some 2025 and older 1/3 hp disposers have a one-year warranty.)10
The permanent screen sits in the same hardware class as the removable option and installs in about fifteen minutes per drain as a retrofit, with no plumbing modifications. Current pricing is on the product page and carries a lifetime residential warranty.
The upgrade path
Everything above reduces to one question: can the person using this sink take the part out and be trusted to put it back in?
If the answer is yes, the drain is protected on the days someone remembers and unprotected on the days they do not. Removable covers and pop-out screens get set on the counter, knocked into the disposal side of a double sink, or thrown out with the scraps. That is not a discipline problem. We all make mistakes, it is human error, but it only takes one error to cause issues in your plumbing, which means a costly repair.
If the answer is no, the drain is protected on every day, including the days you are not there. That is the whole design intent of the SemperScreen® permanent sink screen. It is Type 304 stainless steel with a polished finish and a brushed trim ring, it fits standard three and a half inch drains, it uses a custom tube nut on the one and a half inch tailpiece for more thread contact, and it has been tested and COMPLIED with ASME A112.18.2-2020 / CSA B125.2-20. More than 20,000+ sold since 2017. It carries a lifetime residential warranty.
Homeowners with older lines are the clearest case for it:
"Our house has old drain lines buried below the concrete. We were constantly getting clogged pipes until we installed a SemperScreen® sink screen. Thanks to this product, we have probably already saved thousands of dollars in maintenance and repair." Rob and Giuliana, Homeowners
If you are still working out what the category is and how the options differ, start with what a sink screen is. If you would rather buy locally or have a plumber handle it, use Find a Store or Plumber.
Sample kit ships free. No purchase commitment.
Frequently asked questions
Does removing a garbage disposal require a permit? Replacing the drain assembly under an existing sink is normally treated as a like-for-like fixture repair rather than a permitted alteration, but the requirement varies by jurisdiction and by whether any drain piping is being altered. Check with your local building department before you start.
Will my dishwasher still work without a garbage disposal? Yes. The dishwasher drain hose reconnects to a tailpiece with a dishwasher inlet instead of to the disposal. The full reconnection procedure is covered in our garbage disposal conversion guide.
Is a garbage disposal required by code? No U.S. model plumbing code requires a food waste disposer in a kitchen. The code requirement runs the other direction: the sink waste outlet must be restricted by a device, whether or not a disposal is present.¹ ²
How is a permanent sink screen cleaned if it does not come out? Scraps sit on the surface of the screen and are scooped into the trash. Just scoop it out. There is no basket to lift, rinse and replace.
Will a screen slow the sink down? The SemperScreen® permanent sink screen uses a double-walled design in which the perforation surface area exceeds that of the connecting pipe, so the screen is not the narrowest point in the path.
References
- "Chapter 27 Plumbing Fixtures." 2021 International Residential Code, Section P2714.1. International Code Council. Retrieved from https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IRC2021V3.0/chapter-27-plumbing-fixtures
- "Section 422 Sinks." 2021 International Plumbing Code. International Code Council. Retrieved from https://codes.iccsafe.org/s/IPC2021P3/chapter-4-fixtures-faucets-and-fixture-fittings/IPC2021P3-Ch04-Sec422
- "4714.0420 Sinks." Minnesota Rules, Office of the Revisor of Statutes. 2021. Retrieved from https://revisor.mn.gov/rules/4714.0420/version/2021-09-27T13:19:05-05:00
- "Sanitary Sewer Overflow (SSO) Frequent Questions." U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/npdes/sanitary-sewer-overflow-sso-frequent-questions
- "How to Replace a Kitchen Sink Basket Strainer (DIY)." Family Handyman. 2025. Retrieved from https://www.familyhandyman.com/project/how-to-replace-a-kitchen-sink-basket-strainer/
- "How To Remove Garbage Disposal And Replace With Drain Pipe." DisposalQA. Retrieved from https://disposalqa.com/how-to-remove-garbage-disposal-and-replace-with-pipe/
- "Average Cost of Replacing a Kitchen Sink Drain: 2026 Price Guide." Plumbing Tips Today. 2026. Retrieved from https://plumbingtipstoday.com/average-cost-of-replace-a-kitchen-sink-drain-plumbing/
- "Kitchen Plumbing Cost: Installation and Repair Prices for 2026." Rate Your Plumber. 2026. Retrieved from https://rateyourplumber.com/guides/kitchen-plumbing-cost
- "How to Install a Sink Drain Yourself." Angi. 2023. Retrieved from https://www.angi.com/articles/how-to-install-sink-drain.htm
- "Warranty Information". Insinkerator. Retrieved from https://support.insinkerator.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/639/~/warranty-information
