Hello! We included in our kitchen design a three can disposal center in the lower corner cabinet which will include trash bin, and two recycle bins. We also placed another one can trash pullout bin in the island.

we're lucky to have a large kitchen so we have two separate pull-out trash cabinets, each of which holds two trash cans, one by the main and one by the prep sink. That gives us two for garbage, one for paper recycling, and one for metal/glass recycling. The trash cans are somewhat smaller than a typical kitchen sized can, but are still big enough, using standard 13 gallon tall kitchen bags. They fit into the same space that one standard can does--they are about 12'' square at the top. Definitely worth it for us to double the number of containers available.

Don't you have ash cans in other rooms of your house? We have them in the sun room, bathrooms, bedrooms and office.

We have the same set up as Clinresga. We have a large island with a double pull out on each end. One near sink and butcher block (where I do prep and can scrape stuff right into the trash), and one on the other end near the fridge and beverage center.

Thanks everyone! It sounds like we're going in the right direction.

Marcolo, we do have trash cans in each of the bathrooms and in the office but other than that use the main one. Maybe now that the kids are older I should put one in their rooms...I'd avoided doing that before because you never know what's going to end up in there :-)

We have small trash cans in the bedrooms that are used, as well as the 2 upstairs bathrooms, first floor powder room and office. In the new kitchen I used one lower cabinet for 2 pullout bins...one for trash and the other for can/plastic recycling. Would have loved to fit a 3rd one in for paper but no room, so I have an old laundry basket in the garage next to the door that newspaper gets tossed into...then once a week I dump it in the big bin on pick-up day.

In the downstairs, our only trashcans are in the kitchen (central) and bathroom. Upstairs, there are small ones in each room.

Maybe you could assign a kid to trash emptying each day.

We have the double trashcan pullout in the island like some have mentioned above, only our cans are the full size ones that have a full counter height cabinet front.

we have several tiny trash bins about 5" by 7" . When there's wet (organic stuff) we transfer the wet contents to a bigger bag and get it out of the kitchen a.s.a.p. at the end of the day or the next morning.

With waste baskets and small recycling bin in every room, including halls. Baskets are collected and dumped into trash cans the day before trash collection eve (my task). That night DH hoists the trash cans in the front bucket of the tractor and carries them out the driveway to the public road where recycling and trash are stowed in their respective automatically tip-able containers required in our town.

Kitchen waste works this way:

Compostables: go directly in covered casserole (banana peel between meals) or open bowl on counter during meal prep or large pail during canning/freezing projects. End of the day everything is taken out behind the barn and dumped on the open compost pile. Every week (during non-freezing weather) I fork about in the pile and every other week I paw at it with the small back hoe or f/e loader bucket to aerate and add more materials (grass, chippings, manure, etc.) There's no such thing as too much compost here.

Recyclable stuff (cans, bottles, paper, tinfoil, plastic food containers, cardboard): goes in large covered(we have pets and even washed containers excite their curiosity) waste basket in pantry. It is dumped, when full, into recycling bins in the barn, pending weekly trash night. (Much to the delight of raccoons and skunks who regularly "inspect" my recycling in order to ascertain if I am complying with the requirement that it be washed clean.) We have mixed stream recycling here, so no separating is required.

Non compost, non-recyclable is broken into two areas: food-based grossities (meat scraps and bones, primairly) are kept in a plastic bag-lined, covered container in the freezer door. When bag is full it is tied closed and dumped in the trash can the night before pick up in the wee hours of the following morning. For other non-recyclable stuff: broken glass, light bulbs, bottle caps, food-soiled packaging (plastic wrapping over bacon, for example), etc., we keep a small covered trash step-can in the kitchen. When we do the kitchen it will migrate (I think) to a bin under the sink, accessible from both sides of the narrow (27") prep island. Or maybe I'll keep the can, but put it on rollers so it can be kicked around kitchen easily. Dunno, yet. It has to be covered, though.

We keep covered trash cans outside (or in deep winter in the attached wood-storage room - this is an old farmhouse with that kind of space). The main amount (in volume and weight and stinkiness) of our trash is cat litter. We have ten cats so it's at least three twenty pound boxes per week of clumping litter, plus some Yesterday's News for the Finicky Ones. Litter box gleanings are carried out to trash can every day. (I can cheat in "normal" winters and avoid trudging out to the barn 3X/day with litter if I collect and hold it in a small trash can in the un-heated and thoroughly below-freezing wood room.)

Trash is something that I've given a lot of thought to. Not sexy, but essential to a well-working kitchen and house, IMO.

Family tradition in our house allows certain things like individual apple cores, peach pits and pistachio nut shells to be heaved out open windows into the gardens below if generated in rooms without compost containers. For some reason this does NOT apply to banana peels.

L.

We compost and have a small bucket with a lid under the sink. That gets emptied about every other day. The lid seals pretty tight - so no odor problem. It makes me feel good to know the coffee grounds, egg shells, and cucumber peelings are going to make our small veggie garden better.

Trash is in a big foot pedal can at the end of the counter. I guess we're gauche because we don't have an under cabinet system.

Recyclables are in 2 spots - one next to the compost bin, under the counter. The other on the desk by the front door where we sort mail. All junk mail goes directly into the recyclable bin.

We have other trash cans in the bathrooms, master bedroom, office, and living room next to my husbands chair.

My wife and I generate about one small carrier bag of true trash per week. That goes to our black trash bin on trash pick-up day, along with its siblings from other rooms in the house.

Food waste goes into two small buckets, then to either our own composter, or to our green compost bin for composting by the waste disposal company (their process can take meat scraps, bones, soiled paper, and similar that would poison our own composter).

Right now, recyclables live on top of the fridge until someone carries them outside to the blue recycling bin.

In our planned kitchen, the compost buckets will both be in a mid-height drawer in the prep area, with recyclables in a drawer underneath that (the occasional bulky item can go straight out to the blue bin).

We plan on getting a spare tall cabinet front so we can convert to taller pull-out bins when we sell the house, because we know that's what people will expect.

Food scraps go in the disposal. Our city offers mixed recycling. We do keep a separate trash bin in the kitchen for paper since that is what we generate most. It's built into a little cart I have until I get the kitchen done to my liking.

We have a little hanger that takes plastic grocery bags on the inside of the sink cab door. It works for us since only things like wet paper towels and wet food packaging go there. We take it out once a day. I don't like wet garbage sitting. Aluminum cans go into a bin in the back yard. Plastics, glass and cans go out after the evening meal when the garbage goes out. So few I just let them sit on the drainboard until I or DH happen to step outside.

Each bathroom and bedside has a tiny waste basket. Those are emptied once a week on trash pickup day.

I thought I wanted a recycling/garbage cab when i redid the kitchen. But that was back when i was planning on enlarging the kitchen. I am back to using the original foot print and I realize trash is simply not a big issue for us.

We have a double trash pull out in the main corridor through our kitchen. Much of the downstairs trash gets put into it (the office and powder room have trash baskets.) I prep on the other side of the peninsula so I tend to leave plastic wrappings on the counter and then when I'm on the trash side, it's easy to grab them off. One of the waste baskets is for non recyclables and the other is for paper recycling. We use paper bags as waste bin liners which we reuse as much as possible (the trash gets dumped into an outside container with our town trash bag as a liner, the paper gets taken down to the basement and dumped into a larger container for paper recycling.)

All other non breakable recyclables and returnables get thrown into a chute in our mudroom which goes to a big bin in our basement. DH and ds sort the bin on dump day (or more correctly, transfer station day.) Newspapers and glass recyclables/returnables, each have a shelf in a mudroom cabinet.

We have a pivot-out pail under our main sink for food scraps. It swings out when the door opens and a lid comes off of it at the same time. Most of the food prep gets done near the big sink but we have a small sink next to the pull out trash in the main corridor through the kitchen. We have a pull out shelf under the small sink. I keep some sort of disposable carton (a rinsed out ice cream carton, a plastic container from Trader Joes cookies, etc) on the pull out shelf for the small quantity of food scraps generated on that side of the kitchen. It gets dumped into the main pail as necessary. The food scraps get dumped into the backyard compost pile when the pail gets full (every couple of days.)

The rinsed out ice cream cartons & plastic containers work well as a temporary holding spot for scraps while I'm prepping (if I don't have a dirty bowl I've generated). I keep a stack of them under the sink. After a couple of uses, they get rinsed and thrown down the chute.

Our small sink is right near the mudroom. We often throw items into it that need to be rinsed before going down the chute.

We keep small trash baskets in each of the upstairs rooms (bedrooms, bathroom, laundry room.)

We put the chute in our mudroom a couple of years after our kitchen renovation and it's made a big difference in managing the stuff that needs to go out of the house. The chute is built into a sturdy wooden box with lift up lid. It doubles as a low seat for putting on/off footware.

Because of the 2 shelves and chute in the mudroom, I feel as though the pull out double trash and the under sink food scrap pail is enough for us. Having a way to store waste is important but I'm glad I didn't have to sacrifice other kitchen storage to make it workable for us. We're fortunate to have a walk out basement. I've noticed some people on this forum have trash/recycling chutes that lead to containers in the garage.