Rather a mundane subject, but it’s the little things, ya know?
We’ve been flitting from house to house since we moved here, but are now preparing to permanently settle. I am not sure what we’ll be doing about kitchen trash.
At our Denver house, we had a nice tall pull-out ‘drawer,’ with both a recycle as well as trash can within.
Since we moved here, it’s been under the sink or stand alone can on the floor.
What works for you?
Being a trash “stuffer”, I have broken too many pull out units to count, so now we have a nice large white trashcan found at Home Depot. It is has an outer part that comes off to get to the actual trashcan part. The outerpart also contains the “push” spot where you put the trash in. It really keeps any odors down and looks nice in out kitchen, plus it is easy to clean, just wipe it down with a wet rag…
I use a plastic bag kept in a refrigerator drawer for food garbage. It’s great particularly in very hot weather. I have a regular garbage can in the kitchen for everything else.
I put everything out three times a week–Monday & Thursday for regular garbage; Wednesday for recycled stuff.
We have a cool thing that must have come from one of the box home improvement stores.
It’s a sliding frame with a lidded trash container that fits in the under sink cabinet. There’s a string from the lid to a screw eye on the cabinet wall, so when you pull the trash can towards you, the lid opens.
Works for me. Mostly. I discovered you can cram stuff into the container just by pushing down on it, or it screws up the rollers on the frame.
Wow, this is why I started this thread; I figured I’d get some new ideas.
Thanks for the input!
934spe
My husband had to repair our old pull-out at least 3 times–I know what you mean about trash stuffing.
This is actually part of the reason I seek new methods.
I have a big, round plastic trash can with a swinging/flip lid. It holds a 30-gallon trash bag, and when the can is full and I pull the bag out I can fit a little more into it. I’ve always used a free-standing trash can in the kitchen, but this is the biggest one I’ve had – it works really well for me, partly because I live alone and don’t generate that much trash. I’m about to move to a place with a smaller kitchen, though, and am hoping that I’ll be able to keep it!
We have a metal can, free standing, with a lid that opens when you step on a foot pedal. We also have a little bucket by the sink for compost, which gets dumped into our compost bin by the garden when it gets full. We have a big recycle can which takes both paper, metal, and plastic recycling which sits in the garage right by the door from the laundry room which is off the kitchen. Metal stuff sits in the dish drainer until it goes out there.
I grew up with garbage under the sink, but we don’t have enough room for it now.
This is a “slob tip”, but there you go.
If you want a big, upright can and don’t care about a lid, the tall laundry hampers work better than trashcans. They are sturdier and easier to clean, since the sides are open (you can just hose them down whenever it’s needed)
Our kitchen trash is generally in one of two places. It’s either on the floor, or in the sink. It’s suppoed to go in a can inside the cabinet, under the sink. The kids overfill the can until it falls out inside the cabinet, then someone opens the cabinet door and out it comes. Of course, the dogs often will open the cabinet door and speed up this process, especially if there’s a chicken bone in the trash can, which apparently the dogs can smell from a distance of about 3,715 miles away.
The sink is more of a mystery. I keep asking who puts trash into the sink, because I think it is really disgusting, but neither Mrs Geek nor the kids will admit to it. And yet, somehow, we keep ending up with empty milk jugs and tin cans in the sink. I’m starting to suspect the cats. Or maybe the guinea pig. That cute and cuddly routine is all an act. I’m sure of it.
I have a small-medium sized trash can beside the stove. Just today I told my roommate again, to just throw everything away. Why?
I don’t know what it is with people. I have a small container for kitchen scrap compostables. I have a box just outside the front door for recyclables.
Every person I live with does the same thing. If it’s compostable, it goes in the trash. If it’s recyclable, it goes in the trash. If it’s uncompostable or unrecyclable trash, it goes in the recycling bin or the compost container.
What is it about people if you dare request they recycle or compost they get this passive aggressive dumb-ass disease?
So I just give up and say “throw everything in the trash.”
The thing that kills me is when these people finally get a place of their own, they’ll immediately have to figure out what’s recyclable, but when they live with someone else, they can just let their brain atrophy.
I’ve lived alone for the past 12 years and only started recycling a couple of years ago. Is recycling mandatory where you are, or something?
Honestly, I don’t know about the mandatory part, but the city gives you separate trash, recycling & lawn waste bins, and you get nasty notes from the pick-up guys if you regularly put the wrong stuff in the wrong bin. You’re generally safe putting pretty much anything in the trash, as long as it’s in a bag and they don’t see you’re dumping fluorescent light bulbs or AAA batteries or something.
Just about everywhere I’ve lived over the last ten years has had a curbside recycling program and you’re at least expected to recycle what you can reasonably figure out is recyclable.
I have a very small plastic trash can I use for smelly thing. Egg yolk, onion bits and so on. As soon as I am dine, I tie up the little grocery bag that lines it and toss it into the full-size 55 gallon plastic garbage can next to my counter.
Every other day, I drag the plastic garbage bag down to the dumpster on the way to work. It is never very full.
We had a large stainless steel step can in the kitchen until our goat, er, dog knocked it over. Now we’ve got a smaller step can under the sink and the large can is in the laundry room. We’ve also got a recycling cabinet that holds the recycling bin the county gave us.
When I can afford it, I’m getting a locking step can so we can have a large can in the kitchen again (I love the simplehuman products, btw, great stuff in all different sizes and shapes). The under-the-sink thing is a pain.
Wow, romansperson,thanks for sharing the simplehuman site; I like their narrow and rectangular garbage cans.
We have a very small wastebasket that we keep in the bottom of the pantry (food storage closet, whatever you may call it). The plastic bags from the grocery store will fit it, and we take it out whenever it fills up, which is about once a day, give or take. We just take it to the garage and throw it in the big can. It sounds like a pain in the ass, but it really isn’t.
We have a pull-out “drawer” that is intergrated with our cabinets. It has a trash & recycling.
We take the trash out the day before they come to pick it up or whenever it starts smelling, whichever comes first. We have two trashcans in the back yard that we put out in the alley for the trashman.
My in-laws have an interesting technique. They basically keep a pastic grocery-store bag on the counter, and fill it as the day goes on. They might have to take it out 2-3 times per day but they never have trash sitting in the house.
It helps that their outdoor trash can is right outside the kitchen door, so the multiple trips isn’t really a hassle.
Our garbage is in a covered trash bin in our broom closet. It holds the dry stuff (paper, plastic, etc.).
I put the leftover food from meals, veggie, fruit and meat bits in a container in the fridge until trash day, when I toss it all into the large trash bin, and haul it outside.
Anything I don’t eat, the dog gets.
Anything the dog doesn’t eat, the goat gets.
Not much left after that. 
Disclaimer: I actually have neither a dog nor a goat. Just a trashcan.
We have a small galley kitchen with very limited cabinet space so we just have a plain green kitchen sized plastic can with a garden sized bag in it that we thrown almost everything in. It sits on the floor just behind where Mr2U is standing in the picture. When it gets full, we pull it out, dump all the newspapers that have accumulated on the kitchen table into it, empty ashtrays, etc. then take it out to the garage to wait for garbage day. The only think we don’t put in it is food (as in leftovers and such) - those go in a plastic shopping bag like from Jewel or Dominick’s and then into the freezer which then sit there until garbage day when they go into one of the ones in the garage. Otherwise, the food would stink up the garage.
We also have a recylcing bin that the village has just foisted on us - Mr2U has a keen aversion to these things, so he’s turned it into a game. We travel with it and take pictures of it at various places we’ve gone to. Here it is at the bar!. Anyone want to suggest another place to bring it? 
