Weird question- how to clean big outdoor trash cans

[Anonymous]

Storm drains in the street flow directly into our waterways, like the Chesapeake Bay. Anything that goes into the storm drain goes with it.

Water sent down the drains from our houses goes into the sewer system. It is treated at the water treatment plant before being released. Treatment is necessary to remove everything icky that goes into toilets and other drains within the house.

[Anonymous]

+1 for bleach , you are probably siding everyone a favor and are helping disinfect the potomac, maybe out can be swimmable like as chlorinated pool

[Anonymous]

I just stick my kid in with some water and a sponge. Smallest one is the cleaner.

kidding

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would you need to disinfect an outdoor garbage can?
Just rinse it out and be done with it. What am I missing here?

I wish everyone would do it--the horrible stench of the cans during the hot months permeates the neighborhood. There is a putrid garbage soup at the bottom of many Super cans.

[Anonymous]

If you really want to use bleach, dilute some and use a spray bottle to squirt the inside of the trash can after you've hosed it out. Let it dry.

Then put trash into it and ruin everything.

[Anonymous]

Haven't used them, but : http://www.can-scrubbers.com/new

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Haven't used them, but : http://www.can-scrubbers.com/new

nevermind, looks like they are out of business anyway!

[Anonymous]

+1 for DISINFECTING w/ bleach

[Anonymous]

Who are all these people with putrid "soup" and stinky cans you can smell down the street?? You guys use garbage bags don't you? You throw your meat and produce out just before trash collection don't you? Hopefully not letting it rot in the sun for days on end.

We've probably only rinsed out our trash can with a hose once in the past year, but it still looks relatively clean in there. It's not stinky, there is no puddle of 'soup', no maggots or flies living in there.

Honestly, I don't understand a) the germ-a-phobia surrounding a trash can, b) how your trash cans get so nasty in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Everyone should clean their trash can regularly out of respect for the city workers collecting garbage.

We also drill holes at the bottom so water/fluid do not accumulate between washes.

[Anonymous]

How do you stop animals getting into your trash can?

We put a heavy rock but it gets tossed away regularly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you stop animals getting into your trash can?

We put a heavy rock but it gets tossed away regularly.

We only toss food in our trash the night the trash is taken to the curb. We only rinse our can out with water and sometime a little soap. and air dry.

[Anonymous]

The fact that I live in a rowhouse and the cans are right next to the garage in the back alley and that I need to walk right next to them (and my neighbor's cans as well) any time I park has of course influenced my thinking, but I definitely go for cleaning with bleach, hose, and water as often as possible (I wish my neighbor would do the same thing). I also double-bag my garbage, to minimize exposed garbage. (My neighbors seem to throw garbage sometime without even bagging them.

It cannot hurt to clean -- and desinfect -- the cans as frequently as possible. It cannot hurt to keep something as clean as possible.

By the way, if the garbage collection workers did some effort to actually close the lids after collecting the garbage, it would really help, particularly when rain is forecasted. Why are they not trained to close the lids? Drives me crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fact that I live in a rowhouse and the cans are right next to the garage in the back alley and that I need to walk right next to them (and my neighbor's cans as well) any time I park has of course influenced my thinking, but I definitely go for cleaning with bleach, hose, and water as often as possible (I wish my neighbor would do the same thing). I also double-bag my garbage, to minimize exposed garbage. (My neighbors seem to throw garbage sometime without even bagging them.

It cannot hurt to clean -- and desinfect -- the cans as frequently as possible. It cannot hurt to keep something as clean as possible.

By the way, if the garbage collection workers did some effort to actually close the lids after collecting the garbage, it would really help, particularly when rain is forecasted. Why are they not trained to close the lids? Drives me crazy.

It is a time issue. They have so many homes to collect from in a short amount of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you only use dish soap it will not disinfect the trash can. This is what the bleach is for. You can just dump the bleach into a bucket and pour the bucket into the toilet if you have a problem with poisening the environment.

Are you for real? Does anyone feel ok about poisoning the environment? Wow.

I think the point that the poster was trying to make is that the point of the bleach is to disinfect. If you are not using the bleach you are not actually disinfecting. So if you arent going to use bleach or some other bleach like agent to disinfect there is no point in going through the motions and acting like you are cleaning.

you don't have to disinfect your garbage can, for pete's sake. Are you going to eat out of it? How long will it really be sanitary? Aren't you just going to put more garbage into it?

I agree that a hose with some pressure and sunshine. The sun also disinfects, you know...

People are going nuts with the fear-of-germs thing. Too much bleach (and lawn chemicals etc) in the water system is going to hurt us a lot more than a few germs in your garbage can.