How to Clean Your Kitchen Trash Can, According to the Experts
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Keep the stink to a minimum.
Adobe Stock/Allrecipes
Believe it or not, cleaning the kitchen trash can is an often overlooked task—even for people with the tidiest kitchens. That’s why we had a cleaning professional and a food scientist weigh on what causes trash cans to smell, how to clean them, and how to keep your trash less odorous with home hacks.What Causes Trash Cans to Stink?Even in well-ventilated homes, trash cans can still produce odors because food decomposes and ferments over time. "Microorganisms [present in food] produce enzymes that break down food material and convert them into odorous compounds,” according to food scientist Bryan Quoc Le, Ph.D.Quoc Le says these odorous compounds are sulfur and nitrogen-based, which remind us of gym socks or rotting fish, which are sulfur and nitrogen-based odor compounds. How to Clean Your Kitchen Trash CanTo minimize foul odors, Delah Gomasi, managing director and chief executive officer of MaidForYou, recommends these steps when deep-cleaning your kitchen trash can:Remove the bin liner or garbage bag.Spray the interior with disinfectant, then use dish soap and water to thoroughly wipe down the interior using a hard, bristled scrubbing brush with a long handle.Rise and repeat until the water runs clean.Wipe the bin dry or leave the kitchen can outside to let it dry.How to Keep Your Trash Can Smelling FreshOn top of deep-cleaning, here are five ways to keep your trash can less smelly:1. Use a Stainless Steel Trash CanGomasi recommends using a trash can made of stainless steel instead of plastic: "Plastic can absorb odors from your trash that can seep into the plastic, causing smells to be permanently stuck inside your trash can, making them impossible to clean."2. Take Your Trash Out Every NightTaking your trash out nightly can prevent odors from being absorbed into the can.3. Line Your Trash CansInstead of throwing waste directly into the trash bin, line your trash can with a durable garbage bag. Trash bags with durability and odor protection, such as the scented varieties, can also reduce smells and minimize liquids and spills that leak through the bag and seep out of your bin.4. Absorb the OdorsGomasi recommends keeping your trash can smelling fresh by placing activated charcoal, baking soda, or coffee grounds into the liner to absorb the unpleasant odors.Activated charcoal that was previously exposed to high heat has become porous, allowing it to absorb odorous molecules.Baking soda is another effective method. "Baking soda is made up of sodium bicarbonate, which chemically binds directly to the odor compounds that produce odors in trash cans, namely sulfur compounds, nitrogen compounds, and acetic or lactic acid,” says Quoc Le.Coffee grounds can absorb odors because caffeine, the active ingredient in coffee, contains nitrogen. The nitrogen reacts with the hydrogen sulfur gas emitted from the garbage in the air, neutralizing the odor.5. Separate Your TrashInstead of throwing all your trash into one bin, filtering and separating your trash can reduce the concentrated odor.Place food scraps in the compost bin, food wrappers, meat trays, used jars, bottles, and cans into recycling (where municipal law allows), and everything else that can't be composted or recycled into the trash.Rinsing food packaging with water before tossing it out can also help reduce odors. Read the original article on All Recipes.
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