How To Make A Garbage Can Smell Better

Feb 6

Dad “How do you keep your garbage can from smelling?” “You cut off its nose!”

Seriously, garbage cans are dirty, full of things that can make you sick… and they stink! People don’t like cleaning dirty garbage cans, so the smell gets worse over time. People struggling with the problem of how to make a garbage can smell better go looking for solutions, like you most likely did, because they have typically tried all sorts of things that haven’t worked.

The most common recommendations for making your garbage can smell better

Baking Soda
Cat Litter
Dryer Sheets
Vanilla Extract
Essential Oils
Lemon Peels
Potpourri

You’ve likely tried these solutions. Some of them will help mask mild odors, but you usually just end up with stinking garbage that has a lemon scent. These tips simply don’t work if your garbage can really stinks. To actually make a garbage can smell better, you have to eliminate odors at the source.

Why do garbage Cans stink?

Paper, plastic and glass are the most common items thrown in the garbage can. None of these things stink. However, most of these things have small amounts of organic matter left on them. Packaged food, fruits, vegetables, meat, drinks, and other biodegradable things that we use daily get tossed in a warm, dark container that is the prefect environment for bacteria to grow as these things decompose. The slow breakdown of organic substances and their subsequent consumption by microorganisms can produce unpleasant-smelling chemical compounds.

Sulfur-containing compounds have a very unpalatable odor. Hydrogen sulfide smells like rotten eggs, while other sulfides smell like rotten cabbage. They all have low odor thresholds, so even a tiny amount floating around in the air around your garbage bin is going to be very noticeable.
Decomposing meat, even in small amounts such as the residue left when you empty a package of ground beef, produces the nitrogen containing compounds putrescine and cadaverine. If these sound a lot like putrid and cadaver, it is not an accident and that is what they smell like.
Trimethylamine is a compound derived from ammonia that makes fish smell like fish. As your seafood dinner festers in your garbage can, trimethylamine contributes to the foul odors from your empty milk jugs, butter wrappers and soda cans.
Acetaldehyde is a particularly pungent contributor to the smell in your garbage can and can be found where alcohol and tobacco have been thrown in the can. It can also be generated by plastic water bottles in very hot conditions (in a closed garbage can left in direct sunlight).
Carboxylic Acid smells like vinegar when decomposing. Carboxylic acids are most commonly used as a flavor enhancer and preservative in food and beverages, particularly sugary drinks.
Butanoic Acid is vomit-like in odor and is most commonly generated in our garage when dairy products break down
Propanoic Acid has a rancid odor and is developed when fats breaks down.

Prevention Works Best

It is almost impossible to avoid having things like this in our garbage. So how do you prevent the garbage can from smelling like a pail of rotting fish, smothered in rotten eggs covered with moldy cheese with a cadaver thrown in for good measure?

Most garbage is collected and removed once a week. In theory, the things that smell bad get removed from your bin and it should smell great, or at least, have no smell. If your garbage can still smells after it is emptied, garbage has contaminated the bin and there is now residue providing food for the bacteria generating the bad compounds listed above. The bin needs to be cleaned ASAP!
Minimize the amount of food scraps you put in the garbage can. Use the disposal to grind up food waste and flush it down the kitchen sink drain.
Bag your garbage. Every time. Do not put loose items, especially alcohol or sugary drink bottles/cans and fast food bags with scraps of meat or fish in the garbage unless it is bagged. Because bags inevitably get punctured, put a liner in the bin, then bag everything that goes inside. If the bag and the liner both fail (it happens), the bin needs to be cleaned.
Because moldy food like bread and cheese can release harmful spores it’s best to seal moldy food separately in plastic bags before putting them into a bag in your garbage can.

There are other things in your garbage can that can contribute to foul odors. Mold and mildew smell awful and are commonly found in household garbage. Pests, including roaches and maggots are often found in outdoor bins in warm weather.

There could be other dangers lurking in your bins including Coronavirus, H1N1, MRSA, Norovirus, Hepatitis A, B, and C and others. You may not have these viruses in your household, but if a neighbor upstream of your garbage pickup has any of these in their household, your bin could get cross-contaminated when it is lifted on to the truck to be emptied. The back of a garbage truck is a breeding ground for these things. If your bin touches the truck, or if the operator touches your neighbors’ bins then touches yours, there could be transfer of everything on that truck to your bin and subsequently, your hands.

Read recent articles about why you need to clean, sanitize and disinfect your garbage can and how to do it yourself on our blog.

We CAn Help!

TriStar Bin Cleaning provides solutions to clean, sanitize and disinfect your garbage can. Our purpose-built bin cleaning truck accomplishes a level of safety in just seconds that is simply not possible when using household disinfectants. Our environmentally friendly process safely kills more than 99.999% of the harmful germs and bacteria living in your garbage cans without using hazardous cleaning agents. Our process eliminates the source of food for the odor-causing bacteria, which means your bins smell like new.

If you try to clean your bins yourself using harsh chemicals, you put yourself, your pets and the environment at risk. We use industrial-grade equipment to safely clean, sanitize, disinfect and deodorize your bins using only clean, high-pressure hot water while collecting and responsibly disposing of the waste.

After our hot water cleaning process is completed, the contact surfaces of the garage cans are dried with a clean towel, then electrostatically sprayed with Vital Oxide. Within seconds, Vital Oxide kills 99.999% of any remaining germs that may have survived the standard cleaning process. This includes SARS-CoV-2, the novel Coronavirus that causes COVID-19, H1N1; MRSA; Norovirus; HIV; Legionella; Pseudomonas aeruginosa; Hepatitis A, B, and C; Ebola virus; and others.

Despite its effectiveness, Vital Oxide is an EPA (Registration No.: 82972-1) and FDA approved category 4 , no-rinse food-safe disinfectant. Category 4 means there are no exposure warnings required on the label. Nearly everything has some kind of exposure warning required on the label. Vital Oxide doesn't. Vital Oxide treatment is included with every TriStar cleaning at no additional charge. TriStar Bin Cleaning is the first in the industry to offer this important next step–Disinfection– in the bin cleaning process. You can read more about electrostatic spray and Vital Oxide here.

TriStar Bin Cleaning offers cleaning options to fit every schedule and every budget. For more information on TriStar Bin Cleaning can make your garbage can smell better or to learn more about our services, please visit our How it Works page. To let the professionals handle your dirty garbage cans, book a cleaning now!

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