I really enjoy noticing the unsung things in life sometimes.  Last Friday morning, while it was still dark outside, I started considering garbage cans (trash cans if you prefer).

I can hear you now shaking your head and mumbling that I am either really strange, seriously need to get a life, or a little bit of both.  Well, I can't dispute that I have a different way of thinking about things sometimes.  I mean, I'm actually writing about garbage cans!  The fact is however, that we almost all own at least one of these, but when was the last time you spoke socially about garbage cans or garbage can etiquette.

You see, at this moment, we have two garbage cans outside.  They are tucked away along the side of the house, behind a wooden fence.  Most days, the only ones who see them are the dog and myself.  On Friday mornings though, the garbage truck comes.  I'm usually at work, but on the occasions when I've been home for one reason or another, I've noticed that they are not a favorite of my dog.  She sometimes goes a little wacky when she hears the truck coming.

Anyway, it isn't as though I stopped and stood in the driveway thinking about the garbage can's place in the universe.  It is just that I don't think about them very much until it is time to drag them out.  We probably bought our garbage cans at least 12 or 13 years ago.when we lived in a different house.  They made the trip with us to our new locales and have faithfully served their purpose.  Along the way, both lids have managed to go missing and small to medium sized holes have been worn into the bottoms of these large plastic filth recepticals.

I suppose the life span of plastic trash cans is probably expected to be less what we have already gotten out of ours, but I have a couple of issues.  The first is, I never think to buy new cans and the second is that I'm not sure how to throw away a garbage can.  I guess maybe I could turn it upside down and write "take me" on the side.  I'm not doing that until I have acquired replacements though.

Since I've been pondering garbage cans, I decided to start looking into them.  No, not checking out the contents, I mean seeing what kinds of options there are when one wants to upgrade their waste receptacle.  It turns out that there are a plethora of trash can options available for those in need of a place to deposit their rubbish.

I normally only think of outdoor garbage cans and kitchen garbage cans.  Of course there are the wastebaskets that appear in the bathrooms and maybe smaller rooms throughout the house, but they don't count in my eyes.  I see those small containers as a different beast.

Outdoor garbage cans come in a variety of sizes going all the way up to over 50 gallons.  I remember growing up that everyone seemed to have stainless steel garbage cans like Oscar the Grouch lived in on Sesame Street.  They seem to have gone the way of the dinosaurs in my neighborhood.  I guess they were probably bad for the garbage can business.  They were on the small side compared to what is available today and they dented easily, but they lasted a long time.  I'd probably need about seven of those though.

I also have a bit of a confession and I hope that I hope my family isn't the only one this happens to in the world.  We have outgrown the common kitchen trash can.  There are five of us contributing to filling the standard 30 gallon can throughout the day, and even though we are not around during work/school hours too often, we could still manage to overflow one of these twice each day...at least.  I don't know how we do it, but we do.  I'm a bit embarrassed to say that we have resorted at times to just using a large garbage bag in the small can and then removing it when it is full to simply stand NEXT to the kitchen garbage can until it is full (usually within 2 days).  Is it just us?  I don't know.  The fact is however that those little things are just way to small for us anymore (and yes, we recycle too).  I found some very cool looking touchless trash cans for sale that I thought about buying, but I know I'd be touching it two to three times each day.  I'm torn because I hate having that big bag sitting there on the floor.  It looks terrible to me.  This is becoming a bit of an obsession for me.  There doesn't seem to be any option for a larger indoor trash can that looks good.  I also don't want to have a pile of 15 to 20 small white garbage bags sitting at the curb each week.  I think a solution might be installing a "trash chute", something like a laundry chute where garbage could just be dumped to land in a large trash receptacle that is somewhere out of sight.  That just doesn't seem practical though.

I'm not sure which direction my indoor trash problem will end up going.  I can't stand the status quo, so I guess we'll end up going the route of tossing tons of little white trash bags every week.  I thought of the idea of a trash compactor, but never very seriously.  Maybe I should consider it a bit more.  For our outdoor needs, it might just be time to break down and buy some nice new cans.  Who ever thought that getting rid of the garbage could be such a big stinking deal?