Elegant trash/recycling bins?

October 20, 2006 8:29 AM

I have little under-cabinet space and and am looking for a somewhat elegant solution to trash/food waste/recycling. Because of the lack of under-counter space, I need something free-standing and preferably with a small footprint. Suggestions?

Requirements:

- lid is a must
- small footprint (tall is much better than wide though short and not wide is fine, too)
- way of latching a bag of some kind on
- one can that solves two issues (ie, trash and food) is good. one that solves all three is grand.

I quite like this two in one can but: a) it's very pricey and b) it's meant for recycling, which means there's no easy way to attach a bag. Anyone make anything similar that's for garbage and food waste?

And... anyone know of an online retailer for Simple Human products that's super cheap? The cans are cheaper in stores than on the site so I assume there are places online that are even cheaper than brick and mortar.

posted by Manhasset to Home & Garden (10 answers total)

I have this one, which works well. We get comments about it all the time - people love the lines. We use regular trash bags and just twist them up in the back to fit the can, so we don't have to buy the custom ones. I bought it on sale at a Target store (not online), and it was really inexpensive - 35.00 I think. If you can catch a sale, that's a good bet.
posted by iconomy at 8:38 AM on October 20, 2006

It could be less about the garbage can and more about the counter and cabinet; imagine a lined with a removeable bag in a drawer for "compost" with a slot in the countertop, so you could just "sweep" the carrot tips into it. Then on each door of the cabinet below the "compost drawer" you could have a cut out for different types of garbage, with two side by side garbage cans on a pull-out tray.
posted by DenOfSizer at 8:44 AM on October 20, 2006

I had (maybe) a similar problem. I have a small kitchen with no room for a can, and no under counter space. The kitchen is attached to the dining room, and I didn't want an obvious garbage can sitting there. My solution was a wooden "can" that just looks really nice - even sitting in the dining room. If you think that might work, let me know, and I'll try to find the catalog.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 8:46 AM on October 20, 2006

Oh damn I forgot to finish my comment. For food scraps and garbage, as opposed to trash, we bought the same exact Simple Human can in a mini size, and keep in on the counter next to our sink, because like you, we don't have that much floorspace to devote to the whole composting / recycling / garbage deal. It looks good, takes up hardly any space, and really comes in handy. It uses small trash bags. Also sold at Target.
posted by iconomy at 8:52 AM on October 20, 2006

Kind of like this, but with decorative glass/plexi lid. But I have a LOT of wood in the kitchen, so it works.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 8:52 AM on October 20, 2006

I really like Brabantia bins if you can afford them, there's a flat-backed space-saving one that's pretty cool with a touch-top lid, and all of them are elegant, simple, and have an internal bin so you can easily empty them out.
posted by ukdanae at 9:07 AM on October 20, 2006

Similar question here.
posted by grateful at 9:58 AM on October 20, 2006

We have the Soft Touch model, and we love it. (Wow - did we really pay $150 for it??) It goes well with all the stainless in our kitchen and it seals up tightly with a nifty magnetic latch to keep the dogs' noses out of it.
posted by booth at 12:11 PM on October 20, 2006

Good news & bad news. The good news is, I found the catalog. It's Home Visions. The bad news is, the no longer make that item (weathered pine trash bin). But this one is close.

Strike that! I just found my bin, if you want to see. It's at KMart.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 12:52 PM on October 20, 2006

I got really sick of cleaning smelly gunk out my compost container, so now I don't use a container as such. I have a cafeteria tray with about a dozen thicknesses of newspaper on it, and all the scraps just get piled up on that in a heap. At the end of the day, I slide the newspaper and heap onto two or three sheets of broadsheet newspaper and wrap the whole lot up in a fish-and-chips-style parcel that I take out and drop in the worm farm.

It takes longer than a day for anything to go mouldy or even seriously spoil, so my kitchen doesn't smell. The paper lining on the tray is thick enough to soak up liquids and wide enough to wick them away from underneath the heap, so the tray doesn't get damp and mouldy and it rarely even needs a wipe.

The dry, carbon-rich newspaper balances up the wet, nitrogen-rich kitchen scraps in the worm farm, the gaps between parcels keep the worm farm nicely aerated so it doesn't smell funky, and the worms breed up like crazy in the spaces they find between the newspaper sheets. It all works really really well.
posted by flabdablet at 4:13 PM on October 20, 2006