Just remember you may be able to reduce the volume that your trash occupies, but you can't reduce the weight. Who has to empty your trash? Think long and hard about that...

I once lived in a rental with a trash compactor. Only used it a handful of times. It made the garbage load heavy to carry down to the dumpster.

Friends bought a house with a trash compactor, for the most part they use it as a pullout.

(Big recycling/composting programs in our area, though, so maybe we have fewer things considered trash.)

I wouldn't mind trash being taken out every day, but we don't have bad weather or far to go to get to the outside trash.

I could see a trash compactor being useful in certain situations -- highrise apt and you are throwing a big party, infrequent (or no) trash pickup, etc.

I've never used one. We have medium-sized trash and recycling bins in a 15" pullout, and they both get emptied about twice a week, to the nearby garage. Presumably you would still want a recycling pullout, so in my mind you are using two cabinets for a job that could be done by one.

Maybe plan for larger bins?

We removed the trash compactor when we remodeled our kitchen.

As a teen I lived in a house with a compactor. It was in the laundry/utility room, and we used it mainly for non-kitchen trash. It hasn't been used now in, oh, 25 years or more. I don't know that it even works.

I had a condo with one in the kitchen. Since it was just me, and sometimes a roommate, it took several days for it to fill. In the meantime, it started to smell. One thing I learned was that I had to clean the TOP, that is, the tamper that does the compacting, because it picked up all the ickiness of wet trash. And if it got too full, even compacting it might push something out and it was a bear to clean.

Now with our family (two kids) we have a 13-gallon trash can for kitchen, it's a good size: it gets full before things smell too much, and if something DOES smell too much it's not so big that you feel like you're wasting a huge trash bag. If I had 5 kids I might want something larger, but my cabinet doesn't hold anything bigger.

Just make it one kid's job to check the trash every day, and take it out when full (and, as I have to remind everyone in my house, every time, put in a clean bag).

I have an "ickiness" factor with trash compactors and garburators. I had a trash compactor in one of my old apartments and I could not get the smell that was in there at time I moved in out, ever, no matter what I did. It also meant the trash got heavy (home models can mean you can compact 50lbs worth of garbage) and less manageable. Other downsides are you need to use "trash compactor heavy" bags, and you need to caution everyone about what they can and can't throw in them (things you should not throw in garbage anyway, but if someone does, can have bigger consequences - like batteries). Also no glass, etc. You still need somewhere else for recycling.

I would rather empty trash and recycling daily out of double pull-outs. We are putting double pull-outs in our new build.

Havent seen one of those since the 70s!

I was going to say what Jn3344 said, but she beat me to the punchline! Though I was going to say “since the 80s” . I must be younger than jn3344 haha ;-) (jk, I bet I am older)

No.

I didn't know they still made them. Had one in a house 30 years ago and never used it. The stink of the garbage fermenting in a compacted mass would be a toxic mess.

I remember a friend having one of those as a kid. I also recall recreating the star wars trash compactor scene with it. Looking back, that probably cost us hundreds of dollars.

Had one in our first house and it worked well enough. You just had to be a bit careful not to throw gooey stuff that would then ooze when compacted. The only suggestion is not to install it near a toe-kick heater ... warming up trash is never a good idea!

When we bought our house, it came with a trash compactor. I thought it was the silliest appliance ever, and I couldn't believe that the previous owner put it in.

10+ years later, and we are remodeling the kitchen. Turns out, that trash compactor now is one of my favorite appliances. Our kitchen is on the third floor, and we only get 16 gallon trash bins that the city collects once a week. With the trash compactor, I need to take the trash out once a week. And that's for a family of four. And the best thing is that I still have some space left in my trash bin.

The old trash compactor was made by Kitchenaid, and we just bought the same model again. Sounds as if they have been building the same model for at least 20 years.

Pointless here. Our municipality mandates clear garbage bags with no numerical limit on collection day and no mixing of organics with non-organics or recyclables.

Nay.

Our house came with one. We're taking it out to put in a hole for a trash can. We have a very nosy dog, so we haven't figured out how to keep him out. It might need a door to cover.

I recycle and have a compost pile. Cannot live w/o my compactor (well, I could, but I don’t want to). Surprised so many have issues with weight. It seems like we fill up a bag every 15 days and the weight does not exceed 10 pounds, ever. I don’t put meat scraps in it b/c it gets smelly fast, that kinda trash goes in the big can outside. I put the compacted bag inside wheeled big can and roll it to the curb. No stressful weight there either.

i recommend them but it’s not a must-have.

Depends on usage and living environment (condo, high rise etc.). Thry stink, require special bags and full bags can become heavy. They sure aren't flying off the appliance store floors...

Mark, yep!

If you have another place for trash that isn't food--non-recyclable paper/plastic, sweepings, vacuum cleaner pick-ups, dryer lint, and so on--then go for it.

It seems like a relic from another age. With recycling packaging, composting vegetable material, and freezing any bones until trash day there is not much trash left to compact. [We line dry -- no dryer lint.]

Useful, perhaps if you live someplace with a "pay as you throw" trash system based on volume, even then the compactor would have to be able to use the approved bags. We got one that came with a kitchen we recycled into our new place, we gave it away rather than installing it. The friend who took it loves it, I don't know why.

My FIL has trash p/u by trucks w/electronic arms. Special trash cans that must be positioned just so on the curb. A good portion of the time he needs to save trash for next p/u day because trash won’t fit in the special can. He needs a trash compactor!

Trash compactors can be advantageous when used properly. They are not garbage compactors---meaning do not use with organic refuse that will decompose and stink. Rinse out containers(milk/juice/cans/etc) before compacting. Use heavy paper bags, NOT the plastic type---which always tear.

We used one when we lived in a mobile home and had no place to store trash. It often needed emptying once every two weeks.

When we moved into our current house, there was no room in the kitchen for one, so I built in one in the garage. But, since our children have grown/moved, we do not have as much and we ceased needing to use it.

I had several friends who put these in in the 1970's. They quickly tired of the smell and the danged bag was so heavy they could barely lift it out. All got rid of them.

Yay. Hope we don't regret it but we are installing a trash compactor in our new construction and pray it works well since a secondary trash bin will be on the other end of the 10' long island, primarly for use by all for non-cooking related garbage like paper etc.

Nay. Note the familiar theme- smell. I inherited one in a home once. I tried a few times, but even without putting anything organic in, the smell was gross. Since I lived a very functional pick-up, recycle community, I blasted it with bleach and never used it again.

Think of a garbage truck. Imagine a much smaller, but basically same thing in your kitchen. Then decide.

BTW: The bags for carryout can get very heavy, if you use a compactor and don't empty it regularly. Sounds silly, but very tempting. Compact, and it looks so small...Why empty? Well, because you'll end up with stink, mold and mildew.

And as somebody said upthread, my market says "no" on it. We have a small trash can, a large recycle can. Not one piece of used organic material ever sits in my kitchen. Outside, bye-bye.

I'm not sure what we are doing differently, but smell is generally a non-issue. Maybe, it's just that we sort organics out and don't put it into the compactor, it it looks smelly. Or if we have to do so, then I empty the compator out shortly after. I think in 10+ years, we only got this wrong once. And a little bit of bleach quickly fixed our mistake.

I think, it's mostly a learning curve and some common sense. And that's true for regular kitchen trash as well. You wouldn't let your smelly left-overs from a big fish dinner sit in a regular kitchen trash can for days on end either.

Rinse out containers(milk/juice/cans/etc) before compacting.

This line made me cringe - since all of these things can be recycled. I hate to see recyclables in the trash - but we are lucky enough to have curbside recycling in our community. My Mom has to take hers to a recycling center (which is conveniently located right next to the grocery store).

What is your goal in getting a trash compactor? I assume it's to take the trash out less often.

Neither of us minds taking out the trash, but -- for reasons that make no sense -- we both HATE taking out the recycling. Not logical, I know.

Towards this end, I'm considering putting in a recycling chute between the mudroom and the garage. Something like this (though the images show such a thing between the kitchen and the garage:

One last thought: Aren't bags for compactors expensive? I personally don't care to add expensive must-haves to my household budget.

Costco sells 70 trash compactor bags for $15. That lasts me more than a year, as I generally only need to take the compacted trash out once a week. I think I can just about afford that :-)

My goal is to take the trash out less often. When all the kids are home in summer, for example, we fill two 13 gal kitchen bags about once a day. No convenient recycling options here, and from the new house, we will have to take our trash about a quarter mile away to a dumpster to get rid of it - no pick up at the house.

We also have to take our garbage to the dumpster (only ours is about 3 miles away), but it really didn’t make much difference in the amount of garbage we were hauling.

I love my trash compactor! I empty once a week on trash day. If I am worried about odor it goes directly to the large trash outside. I have a separate pull out for recycling.

One year later we simply love our trash compactor; it is extremely convenient and we only use it for kitchen garbage, not recycling or cardboard for which we have large containers in our pantry. I empty the compactor every Sunday. No smells etc. If it ever smells, it has an air freshner pad and a switched built in fan we can use.

We take our garbage to the local dump, which has mandatory separation of a variety of materials and recycling. We must have multiple containers of recyclables and other separated materials. Our compactor enables us to have only one bag of garbage.

1. We don't have curbside pickup for trash, but rather we drive to a transfer station where deposit our compost, garden/grass clippings, mixed stream recycling, and garbage bags (using mandatory bags which cost $$$ to provides an incentive to reduce the amount that goes into the landfill). I try to use cloth instead of paper towels andnapkins, and when we do have food-soiled paper products, that can be composted. As a result we really don't have a smell problem with our trash compactor.

I'm considering one because the cabinet where my pull out trash cans are smells, even though I wash the cans twice a week and take the trash out every day. The smell seems to have permeated the cabinets and the drawer above it. I have a compactor (very old) in another home, and it never smells.