The Best Kitchen Trash Can | The Sweethome

For less than $15, this touch-lid can comes with a spring-loaded top and an easy to clean, roomy plastic body. Not very solid if you have clumsy kids or pets who like to knock things over, though.

Going much cheaper, there is a touch-lid Hefty can for $14.47 we can see a place for if you generate less trash than average, don t have any kids or dogs ready to knock it over, and absolutely need something cheap but minimally functional.

And for very active spaces where trash goes out every day—or at least smelly stuff is rare and immediately tossed—the $120 simplehuman 50-L Slim Open Can looks nice and avoids the lid/step/close business entirely. Again, though, we must stress: this only works if you have a very particular kind of household: one that takes out trash daily or hardly ever throws out things that could smell. It s the best version of an open can, but an open can is not for everyone.

Why don’t we have a specific runner up? simplehuman offers three kinds of rectangular step cans ( steel bar, wide-step rectangular, and rectangular ), each in different sizes (usually 30-liter/8-gallon, 38-liter/10-gallon, and 50-liter/13-gallon) and with some different finishes and options (white/brushed/fingerprintproof steel, sometimes with a plastic/steel lid difference). There are also recycler models that you should avoid.

We specifically recommend the 38-liter/fingerprintproof stainless/wide-step version. If you had trouble finding that specific can in stock at Amazon or your local store, you should not be afraid to change up finishes, lids, or switch from wide to regular step; none of these options invalidates the can s appeal. We do not, however, recommend the added expense of the steel bar step.

You probably have a kitchen garbage can already, unless you re reading this on your phone on the first day of living in your new space. It’s a hollow object with a certain volume—what more do you need, right?

What might move you to improve your kitchen experience are all the little aggravations that arise with almost every garbage can how you get scraps into the mouth of the thing, how well the lid stays open when you ve got a lot to drop in, how successfully the can keeps smells in and dogs out, how easy it is to do the occasional interior cleaning, whether the can is sturdy and balanced, and how well a good kitchen trash bag fits in the thing.

Upgrading to our pick can solve all of these issues. We think it’s worth it for a kitchen item you use multiple times a day and that should last up to 12 years. Perhaps after a decade we ll see sensors, brand-new battery technology, and home automation turn the trash can smart; in the meantime, our favorite garbage can will work smoothly and reliably for you.

The contenders.

In very brief summary, the Sweethome editors and I considered garbage cans mostly for how they did the job of containing your kitchen and household trash, and then, on a much lesser scale, how they looked while doing so.

A can should not dent, rust, or become a fingerprint magnet. It should hold a standard 13-gallon kitchen trash bag well. It should not knock over, but it should still be fairly easy to carry around.

The can itself should not have crevices or bag-catching angles that make cleaning a true punishment of the fates.

And because we can all remember the last time a garbage bag broke, spilling vile, slightly-composted liquid everywhere, the can itself should not have crevices or bag-catching angles that make cleaning a true punishment of the fates.

Narrowing down size and shape was tough. Some households create enough refuse that trash bags must be taken out near-daily; some only make it out to the curb or parking lot once a week. Some kitchens have more than enough room for a free-standing, roughly 13-gallon square-shape can, while others need smaller cans with less floor commitment.

In the end, we aimed for a 40-liter volume and a 1.5-square-foot footprint, which we thought would be appropriate for most people.

Rectangles give you more volume than round and semi-round, but with the same footprint.

A rectangular shape with an internal hinge that doesn t require an extra inch of clearance against the wall seems to make the most sense for the most kitchens. Semi-round cans work so long as you have a section of open wall in just the right spot for trash tossing. Round cans. particularly retail cans made for households, take up good space without necessarily being easy to empty or move around. There is an occasional slim-profile can you might consider (one of which we tested), but generally, you want a rectangular can. Not only does it efficiently use its space, but it makes scraping and emptying scraps from rectangular cutting boards and dustpans easier than round or semi-round cans.

The criteria considered most heavily (and which spurred the longest arguments among writers and editors) is how one gets the can open.

Ideally, you want a can that could be opened without hands, though not one that prevents manual opening. The construction, tension, and durability of the hinge or levers is key, as is whether you can keep the thing open for multi-trip jobs. Most of us lean toward step-operated cans which allows for hands-free use, but a decent push-button or even open-top could have won us over, if the opening action became second nature over time.

Some styles got very short shrift in our initial reading and review sorting. Lids on swing-tops and fold-in cans get blocked when the bag is full. Swing-top and fold-in lids also collect germs and prevent use at their centers and edges, respectively.

Swing-top and fold-in lids also collect germs, and prevent use at their centers and edges, respectively.

Cans with sensors seem goofy from the outset. They need batteries or charging and often lack alternative opening mechanisms. The majority of affordable units are made by firms that haven t established themselves. Most of all, when the sensor goes wonky or dead dead, you ve bought a trash can that doesn t even work as well as our $15 Hefty pick.

Materials and finish are a matter of personal taste. In general, the stainless steel models provide a more sturdy, heavy base without retaining smell but can be prone to rust (if chipped) and dents; fingerprintproofing involves the same steel becoming coated at a premium.  Plastic models clean up pretty easily but are easier to topple and can absorb odors over time.

I started my search with a hunt for other publications reviews of garbage cans. It turns out there really are not many at all.

The most comprehensive survey of trash or garbage cans came from Slate. but it came in 2004. Blog Apartment Therapy had an annual guide in 2012. but it is really just a big list of links to affiliate-coded products and prior content. RealSimple did an overview in 2012, but it was only a series of glances and there were some odd picks (although they affirm that sensor cans are not very good). There is, of course, a decent Ask Metafilter thread on the topic, but it dates to 2005.

I spoke with five chefs I knew in my city about their trash cans, but their line of work calls for huge, ugly cans that are, above all, sturdy and leak-proof. Those who deal with garbage professionally have their specialized containers and tools; we consumers are left to glean what we want from experience.

To compile my list, I had to turn to customer reviews at Amazon, Target, Home Depot, and other stores, and I asked friends and professionals in trash-generating fields. I found a general trend: the market is all but dominated, over a certain dollar amount (let s say $45), by cans from simplehuman. There are maybe hundreds of cans under $50 and a handful of truly showpiece cans over $200, but almost every price point in the middle is held down by simplehuman, at almost every major retailer. But I read the reviews, gathered the SKUs, and gathered a list of roughly 50 cans.

Using customer reviews, the few published guides, and eliminating any cans with obvious problems, we narrowed it down to 8 cans that were widely available, with fairly middle-of-the-road options:

To test those cans, I pretended like I was a busy cook with some bad habits and really bad luck. I fitted our Glad Tall Kitchen Drawstring bag to the can or its liner and pretended I wasn t neurotic about it. I created fake food scraps with shredded paper, wetting down half of them to make lumpy, runny messes. I ran a sponge around inside the cans, as if I d had a bag break on a night when a lot of raw chicken was trimmed.

I created fake food scraps with shredded paper, wetting down half of them to make lumpy, runny messes.

I dumped equal parts kitty litter and water into bags inside each can, seeing if there were any catches or ergonomic challenges yanking soaked, heavy contents out. And I dropped far too much essential oil of camphor into each can, then came back to them after two hours to see how much you could smell outside the can. (All of the cans fared pretty well with this test, including the open-top bullet can.)

As for the steps on the step cans, I measured and observed what I could–the closure time, the likelihood of the lid to fly off or become detached if pressed too hard–and also had friends and coworkers test each can and gauge which can felt right, felt sturdy, felt like it might not be terrible to have to use that can every day. Those tests, plus long discussions about can merits with editors and picky friends, brought me to our pick.