@anomalous1: In an oxygen rich environment, botulinum spores can’t germinate and the cells can’t live. But the toxin itself is not destroyed by oxygen. The World Health Organization says that inhalation of botulism toxin is possible but “is rare and does not occur naturally”.
And then I’ve got paper stuck to the bottom of the bin. But there is an even better common household item you can put in the bottom of the bin, specifically designed to absorb noxious liquids, avoid noxious smells, and to be easy to dispose of.
Kitty litter.
My own little life hack.
I never put “wet” garbage into a wastebasket. Only “dry” stuff. Wet stuff goes into a plastic bag that I keep in the door of the freezer. I save empty bread bags, which work very well for this. Once a week, or when the bag gets fullish, I tie off the bag and take it out to the dumpster along with the dry trash.
I just compost the wet stuff. Then I get great soil back for the garden. If it’s meat-based wet stuff, then that does go into the freezer until off-premises trash disposal takes place.
I tend to encounter trash juice in the bottoms of my produce drawers in the fridge when I’m not paying attention, not in the kitchen trash bag. Never worried about botulism in it, though. Wrong medium.
I agree that if you’re collecting juice at the bottom of your garbage cans you’re doing it wrong.
Where does the liquid come from? Whatever that is, stop tossing it in your garbage can. Yeah, public trash cans have people throwing half-full soda cups in the trash. But you don’t have to do that in your own home do you?
I wanted to come back and add that “anaerobic” is an English word, and, like all words, has a number of slightly different meanings. “Garbage juice” may not be aerobic enough to support fish or frogs: is it anaerobic in that sense? Does anyone know?
If I recall correctly, when you’re talking about bacteria “anaerobic” doesn’t apply until you have less than 1% of the current level of oxygen in the standard atmosphere. It takes extremely little oxygen to either kill them or induce the to form spores.
I don’t think many people have garbage cans that devoid of oxygen.