Category: Article

You might only think about your garbage can on trash day, but just like all of the outdoor furniture and tools, your garbage can requires occasional maintenance. Keeping the garbage clean both in and out helps protect your investment and makes the exterior of your home or office look clean and tidy. 

Having a filthy or overflowing garbage can can create safety and health hazards. An overflowing garbage can looks messy and attracts wild animals. If your trash includes large items with recognizable labels, you could also attract criminals who use packaging trash to learn about what you have in your home. 

If you want to avoid having an overloaded trash can, you need to find one that is large enough to meet your regular needs. If you have occasions when one is not enough, you can invest in a second one and store it when it’s not in use. Rather than keeping your garbage cans in your home, you can add an attractive hiding spot on the side of your home. 

Select a Trash Can That Meets Your Needs

When you purchase your trash can, you want one that can withstand the elements and the animals. A bear-proof trash can can withstand attacks from all types of animals. They are made of sturdy materials and will not collapse under pressure. 

Your trash can should have a lid that stays in place, especially when a large animal, like a bear, is trying to get into it. A solidly built trash can will not only withstand pressure from animals, but also from the power of the wind and weather. 

If you have to move your trash can from your garage or behind a screen, you will want one with wheels. Otherwise, they can be too unwieldy when full . The garbage can should also fit the requirements for your garbage hauler, since many have trucks with automated lifters. Many garbage cans have handles that make them easy to push. 

Along with choosing a garbage can with wheels, it is vital to have one with a cover. Garbage cans build up repulsive odors and having a lid can keep the smells inside of the can. The lid can keep the smells in the can, instead of seeping out and attracting animals. The lid can also keep stray garbage from blowing out and animals from getting in. 

While you are shopping around for the perfect garbage can, consider the shape. A rectangular can is easier to store, as they fit securely into corners. Cylindrical designs waste space, as they do not fit into corners. 

Maintaining Your Trash Cans

Garbage cans are an investment, so you want to take good care of them. You need to clean them and keep them in protected places. 

Cleaning a Trash Can

Keeping your trash can clean begins with keeping a garbage bag in the bottom. The garbage bag will collect liquid and other debris from collecting in the bottom of the can. 

To clean the garbage can, remove the garbage bag from the bottom of the can. If you have not placed garbage bags in the bottom, then remove any trash in the bottom. Some people like to wear gloves when doing this. It can also be helpful to clean your garbage can right after it was picked up by your sanitation company. 

The next step is to spray the inside of the can. Use a garden hose with a pressure nozzle. If you use a pressure washer, be careful of your surroundings especially pavers and other easily damaged items. 

If substances have made their home in the bottom of the can, use Dawn or another grease-cutting soap to break it down. Squirt the soap in the bottom, fill the garbage can at least one-third full with water, and let the soap do its work. You can also use a cup or two of distilled white vinegar. If the can requires extra cleaning, use a handled scrub brush to clean the sides. Rinse the can until it is clean. 

To let the garbage can dry, tip it upside down to let it empty. After the can has dried, you can put a baking soda or another odor-absorbent powder into the bottom of the can. You can also spray it with Lysol or white vinegar. If you use vinegar, you’ll want to spray it again to remove the smell.  If you have a metal garbage can, baking soda can cause it to rust. To avoid this problem, put baking soda in a coffee filter and close it with a twist-tie. You can also put dryer sheets in your garbage can to reduce odors. You will have to replace these items each week, as everything in the garbage can will end up in a garbage truck.

Store Your Garbage Can in a Safe Place

Where you put your garbage matters. If your garbage can is outside, keep it in a place that gets the least amount of sun and wind. The weather can damage the outside of the garbage bin. Keeping your garbage can in a shaded area will prevent the sun from damaging the exterior, and it will prevent the inside from getting hot and cause smells to increase. 

If you put it in your garage, be sure to have out of the way of your vehicles. You don’t want to hit it with your car, or you could damage it beyond use. You could also knock it over and spill garbage all over your garage floor. It’s a good idea to avoid putting garbage cans in a garage or shed, because the smells can take over those enclosed spaces. 

To reduce odors in your garbage can and to reduce your amount of garbage, consider making a compost pile for kitchen scraps and some paper products. With a compost pile, you keep rotting food from stinking up your garbage can. You can also save money on garden compost if you make your own. 

Hiding an Exterior Garbage Can

Garbage cans are ugly, and they can reduce curb appeal. Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to hide them without having to store them in a garage or shed. Wherever you decide to hide your garbage can, choose a place that gives you easy access to the curb. No one wants to push their garbage cans long distances. 

Before making any changes to your fence, home, or yard, consider what you already have. If you have trees or a fence that you could use to camouflage your garbage cans, use them. Many people put their garbage cans along the side of their home, behind a fence. Consider the route you have to take to the curb, too. It’s much easier to push a garbage can over paved routes rather than over grass. 

If you don’t have any hiding places, consider these simple and inexpensive solutions. 

Add a Partial Fence or Privacy Screen

One of the easiest ways to hide garbage cans outside is to put a partial fence along the side of your home. In many situations, you only need three to five feet of fence that is at least the same height as your garbage can. Have the fence extend directly from the side of your home. You might be able to find a panel that doesn’t need to have posts dug into the ground. Manufacturers make folding panels especially to disguise trash cans. They usually have metal frames covered with a natural material like wicker or willow. 

If you don’t want to add fencing, you can use a trellis and camouflage your trash bins by letting ivy or another creeping plant over the trellis. Consider using a composite panel to add style and hide your garbage cans, too. 

You could also create a trellis or small fence out of recycled pallets. The slatted wood gives you a place to hang flower boxes or to grow ivy. You can paint or stain the pallets to have them match your home. 

Use Shrubbery or Plants

If you prefer to hide your garbage can with something more organic, you can add shrubs to create a natural fence. Boxwoods or other evergreen shrubs will keep your trash cans hidden in all seasons. Dogwood is also useful for hiding unsightly garbage cans. 

Build a Garbage Pad

Some homeowners like to have a clean, dedicated place for your garbage cans. You can do this by adding a small cement pad on the side of your home and installing an attractive fence to block it. The cement keeps the garbage can clean on the bottom. Installed fence is less likely to fall over in the wind than a folding panel or trellis. 

Build a Garbage Shed

You could hide your exterior garbage can with an attractive wooden enclosure, like a mini garbage shed. Consider building or buying a four-sided enclosure with a top that lifts and one side that opens. To add garbage to the can, you lift the top. To remove the can, you open the side and roll the garbage can out of it. This might not be as attractive as hiding your can behind a trellis or attractive fence, but it is much better looking than an ugly garbage can. The garbage shed only needs to be slightly bigger than your garbage can, because that is the only thing you’ll put in it. 

As people move farther out into suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas, interactions with wildlife become more common. Because subdivisions and homesteads often displace animals, those animals look to suburbs and cities for much-needed food. To find food, wild animals, like bears, often look inside of garbage cans.

Bears roam several states in the northern and eastern parts of the US. Brown bears or Grizzly bears are common near the northwestern Canadian border and Alaska. Black bears live in a wide-spread area in the Upper Midwest and eastern states. They will wander up to 50 miles in a day to find food – and they love to dig in garbage cans.

Seeing black bears in suburbs and within city limits is becoming a common experience. They are speedy animals that have strong senses, especially their sense of smell. They are agile and intelligent, with good memories and the ability to navigate to food.

If you have bears near your home, you should keep your trash sealed tightly because bears will find it. They know how to get into garbage cans and have proven their ability time and again at campgrounds and rural homes.

What Makes a Garbage Can Bear-Proof?

Garbage cans need to have several features to make them fully bear-proof. Just having a lid that seals tightly isn’t enough. Bears are wily and will work hard to get into a poorly-built garbage can.

Heavy Duty Material

The best bear-proof garbage cans are made of materials that are built to last. One tried-and-true bear-proof material is heavy-duty HDPE. Metal is another material that is bear-proof. Keep in mind that bears can chew plastics, so if you buy a garbage can, be sure it is made of HDPE or another molded plastic that will seal tightly.

Whatever type of bear-proof garbage can you choose, be sure it is impact resistant. In their attempts to get to food, bears can do damage to any garbage can. Once the trash can is dented, bears have an easier time getting to the contents inside. If the garbage can is weakened by exposure to the elements, especially UV rays, bears also get quicker access by chewing or clawing into the receptacle.

Bear-Resistant Top

Bears are smart, and they show their intelligence when they figure out how to open garbage cans and dumpsters. The trash receptacles with basic lids are easily accessible to bears who can lift them with their jaws and paws. So, the key to bear-resistant trash cans are lids that require several steps to open them.

Bear-resistant tops twist into place or clamp on with heavy-duty straps and clamps. If straps are used, they need to be resistant to chewing. Twist tops need to be weather-resistant and dent-resistant so bears cannot break into them.

Once the top is in place, the best bear-resistant trash receptacles should be air-tight, too. This will keep odors from leaking out and attracting bears.

Keeping Other Animals Out

Bear-proof garbage cans should keep other animals out of your trash, too. For example, raccoons are frequent dumpster divers. If they smell food, they will do their best to get to it. Animals tend to have a better sense of smell than humans, so they are likely to smell scraps of food in the trash. Bears can smell food up to one mile away, and once they find a regular food source, they will come back for more. Other animals do the same thing.

Some of the best animal-proof trash cans are in National Parks. Because they are safe homes to animals, National Parks had to install permanent trash receptacles that animals could not access. Their trash cans are made of metal and look more like metal mailboxes. To throw away trash, you must move a latch to open a heavy metal door. Wild animals cannot open the heavy-duty trash cans because there are too many steps (having opposable thumbs is also helpful).

Considering Bear and Human Safety

Having bear-proof garbage cans keeps you and your family safe. When bears know where the food is, they will continue to come back for more. It might be a novelty to have a bear stop by for dinner occasionally, but it is far from safe. Bears have been known to enter homes and to stand their ground if challenged. They are smart, wild, and potentially dangerous.

When you keep the food sources unavailable, they will go elsewhere to find nourishment. This is the goal of having bear-proof garbage cans. Not that you keep bears out of your trash, but that you keep bears away from your home and family.

If you have black bears – which are the most common bears in the Midwest and Eastern United States, you most likely will not have safety issues. Black bears tend to retreat when they are challenged. They climb trees to get away from danger. However, if you have Grizzly bear – or brown bears – the opposite is true. Grizzlies will attack when challenged, especially if their children are nearby.

Keeping bears away from your home is also safer for bears. All too often, when black bears become nuisances in neighborhoods, there are two possible outcomes. One is that the bear is relocated. But, if the bear returns, the second option is that officials will kill the bear. Destroying the bear doesn’t always take care of the problem. If there is one bear, there is usually another who is also hungry and looking for food.

If you do have an encounter with a bear, you can expect the bear to feign aggression. The bear might make noises with its teeth or jaw. It might exhale heavily in an attempt to sound aggressive. The bear might also hit the ground or a tree or other nearby object. These behaviors are more out of fear than aggression. Your job is to give the bear space to get away from you. You mustn’t try to capture the bear.

Bear attacks are rare. In fact, more people are killed by snakes and dogs than by bears. Humans and bears have regular interactions, but attack rates are low. When it comes to bears and humans interacting, it is actually more dangerous for the bear. Many bears end up dying because they keep coming back to human homes for garbage-can food.

Community Garbage Ordinances

If your community does not have a garbage-control ordinance, you might want to take the initiative and start one in your neighborhood. Bears are persistent, and if you have them in your community, they can become relentless pursuers of available food. Garbage ordinances need to apply to both commercial and residential properties. Consider how delicious a restaurant’s garbage would be to a wild animal. Dumpsters are some of the easiest trash receptacles for animals to enter, especially creatures as nimble and smart as black bears.

Black bears travel during the day. They look for food in their territories, napping when they want. But, as humans move deeper into bear territory, black bears develop nocturnal habits. Just because you do not see them doesn’t mean they aren’t around.

Going Beyond the Bear-Proof Trash Can

Keeping your home and community safe from hungry bears involves more than buying a bear-proof trash can. There are several steps that homeowners and business owners can do to prevent bears from showing up on your property. Remember, bears have no concern for property, and they will quickly destroy garage doors, siding, landscaping, and cars to get to food.

Storing Garbage

To keep bears away from your home and trash cans:

1. Put your garbage in air-tight plastic bags before you put it in the trash bins.
2. Regularly clean your trash can to remove any smells.
3. Keep your garbage can outside; never store it in your garage because bears will enter your garage to get to food.
4. To keep bears from entering your garage, keep the doors closed at all times.

Consider what you put in your garbage, too. If you have meat or fish in your trash, it is wise to keep it in your home until trash day. The smell of meat and fish might permeate the garbage can and attract bears and other hungry, wild animals. You should also rinse cans and other containers to get rid of other bear-attracting smells.

Take Care of Bird Feeders

Your bird feeders can also attract bears. To keep bears away, feed birds when bears are in their dens through late fall and early spring. If you do keep bird feeders out all year, keep them on posts that bears cannot climb. Because birdseed often falls, you should clean it up to prevent bears from coming to clean it for you.

Manage Your Compost

Compost can also attract bears. Therefore, you should never put meat, fish, or sweet-smelling food that will attract bears. If you do put food scraps in your compost, add lime to take care of the odors. Keep your compost far from your home, so if bears do show up, they won’t have the opportunity to do damage to your home.

Feed Your Dog Indoors

Dog food can smell good to bears and other unwanted wild life. If your dog spends time outside, you likely have food outside for it. To reduce the chances that your pet’s food will attack bears, clean up after your dog, or choose only to feed your dog inside.

Keep Your Patio Clean

Bears love to eat meat. So if you grill regularly, your patio will smell like a feast to a hungry black bear. Always clean your outdoor grill after you use it. Keep the top of your grill closed. Clean well after every outdoor meal to remove smells from your patio and furniture. Consider keeping a loud wind chime near your grill. The unexpected sound might help keep bears away.

Install Electric Fencing

If you have fruit trees, beehives, pets, or other valuable items in your yard, you might consider installing electric fencing. Bears will not be able to enter. If the trees are near the perimeter of your fence, be sure to pick up fruit that falls on the safe side of the fence.

Unfortunately, electric fencing is not an option for everyone. Bears are easily scared. So, you can hang noise makers on a regular fence. Some people will use wind chimes, whistles, or water guns to keep bears off their property.

Bears can be destructive, which is why no one wants them on their property. Using a bear-proof garbage can and taking several bear-proofing steps, you can keep bears where they belong – in the wild.