![Lixo-reciclável-UFRN](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Lixo-recicl%C3%A1vel-UFRN.jpg)
A waste container, also known as a dustbin, garbage can, and trash can is a type of container that is usually made out of
metal
A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...
or
plastic
Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...
. The words "rubbish", "basket" and "bin" are more common in British English usage; "trash" and "can" are more common in American English usage. "Garbage" may refer to
food waste
Food loss and waste is food that is not eaten. The causes of food waste or loss are numerous and occur throughout the food system, during production, processing, distribution, retail and food service sales, and consumption. Overall, about o ...
specifically (when distinguished from "trash") or to
municipal solid waste
Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the United States and rubbish in Britain, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. "Garbage" can also refer specifically to food waste, ...
in general.
Designs
![Brabantia_Pedal_Bin_Decor_Bayon_1972](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Brabantia_Pedal_Bin_Decor_Bayon_1972.JPG)
A pedal bin is a container with a lid operated by a foot pedal.
Lillian Moller Gilbreth
Lillian Evelyn Gilbreth (; May 24, 1878 – January 2, 1972) was an American psychologist, industrial engineer, consultant, and educator who was an early pioneer in applying psychology to time-and-motion studies. She was described in the 1940s ...
, an industrial engineer and efficiency expert, invented the pedal bin in the 1920s for the disposal of
kitchen waste
A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a ...
. The foot pedal enables the user to open the lid without touching it with their hands.
In the 2010s, some bins have begun to include automated mechanisms such as a lid with
infrared
Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
detection on the top of the can powered by batteries to open it rather than a foot pedal, freeing the user from touching the bin in any way. This helps prevent the bin lids becoming clogged with trash. These wastes containers are mostly made of
stainless steel
Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corros ...
. Some bin models also include a small receptable for an
air freshener
Air fresheners are consumer products that typically emit fragrance and are used in homes or commercial interiors such as restrooms, foyers, hallways, vestibules and other smaller indoor areas, as well as larger areas such as hotel lobbies, auto d ...
.
Origins
French
Legislation surrounding waste receptacles was first introduced in France in an 1883 prefectural order signed by
Eugène Poubelle
Eugène-René Poubelle (15 April 1831 – 15 July 1907) was a French lawyer and diplomat who introduced waste containers to Paris and made their use compulsory. This introduction was so innovative at the time that Poubelle's surname became synony ...
, from whose name the French word for a waste receptacle comes. This order mandated the provision and collection of waste bins to each household in Paris. These bins were specified as having to be between 80 and 120 litres in volume and having a handle and a lid. Three waste bins were to be allocated to each household in order to sort refuse from reclaimable fibres such as paper and cloth and other reusable materials like ceramics, glasses and oyster shells.
English
Legislation setting out the responsibilities for the provision and collection of ''"receptacles for the temporary deposit and collection of dust ashes and rubbish"'' by local authorities in Britain was first set out in the
Public Health Act 1875
The Public Health Act 1875c 55 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, one of the Public Health Acts, and a significant step in the advancement of public health in England.
Its purpose was to codify previous measures aimed at combatin ...
. However, this did not mandate the use of them, leaving the decision to offer the service to local government instead.
Household collection
![Bin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Bin.JPG)
In many cities and towns, there is a public waste collection service which regularly collects household waste from outside buildings. The waste is loaded into a
garbage truck
A garbage truck is a truck specially designed to collect municipal solid waste and transport it to a solid waste treatment facility, such as a landfill, recycling center or transfer station. In Australia they are commonly called rubbish truc ...
and driven to a
landfill
A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...
,
incinerator
Incineration is a waste treatment process that involves the combustion of substances contained in waste materials. Industrial plants for waste incineration are commonly referred to as waste-to-energy facilities. Incineration and other high ...
or crush facility to be disposed of.
In some areas, each household has multiple bins for different categories of rubbish (usually represented by colours) depending on its suitability for
recycling
Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...
, which will instead be routed to a recycling center.
Roadside waste collection is often done by means of larger metal containers of varying designs, mostly called
dumpster
A dumpster is a movable waste container designed to be brought and taken away by a special collection vehicle, or to a bin that a specially designed garbage truck lifts, empties into its hopper, and lowers, on the spot. The word is a generic tr ...
s in the US, and
skip
Skip or Skips may refer to:
Acronyms
* SKIP (Skeletal muscle and kidney enriched inositol phosphatase), a human gene
* Simple Key-Management for Internet Protocol
* SKIP of New York (Sick Kids need Involved People), a non-profit agency aidin ...
s in the UK.
Public collection
![International tidyman](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/International_tidyman.svg)
Public areas such as
parks
A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...
, often have
litter
Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. Litter can also be used as a verb; to litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups, ...
bins placed to improve the
social environment
The social environment, social context, sociocultural context or milieu refers to the immediate physical and social setting in which people live or in which something happens or develops. It includes the culture that the individual was educate ...
by encouraging people not to litter. Such bins in outdoor locations or other busy
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
areas are usually mounted to the ground or wall to discourage
theft
Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for some ...
, and reduce
vandalism
Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property.
The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The term f ...
, and to
improve their appearance are sometimes deliberately artistic or cute. In dense urban areas, trash is stored underground below the receptacle.
Many are lined with a plastic or paper
bin bag
A bin bag, rubbish bag (British English), garbage bag, bin liner, trash bag (American English) or refuse sack is a disposable bag used to contain solid waste. Such bags are useful to line the insides of waste containers to prevent the insides ...
to help contain liquids.
Metaphors
The term "garbage can" is also used for a model of decision making, the "
Garbage Can Model" of decision making. It is concerned with cases of decision making in great aggregate uncertainty which can cause decisions to arise that from a distant point of view might seem irrational.
A "
trash can
A waste container, also known as a dustbin, garbage can, and trash can is a type of container that is usually made out of metal or plastic. The words "rubbish", "basket" and "bin" are more common in British English usage; "trash" and "can" a ...
" metaphor is often used in computer operating system desktop environments as a place files can be moved for deletion.
In a workplace setting, a bin may be euphemistically called "the
circular file
A waste container, also known as a dustbin, garbage can, and trash can is a type of container that is usually made out of metal or plastic. The words "rubbish", "basket" and "bin" are more common in British English usage; "trash" and "can" a ...
", "the round file" or "the janitor's file". Whereas useful documents are filed in a
filing cabinet
A filing cabinet (or sometimes file cabinet in American English) is a piece of office furniture for storing paper documents in file folders. In the most simple context, it is an enclosure for drawers in which items are stored. The two most commo ...
, which is rectangular, junk mail and other worthless items are "filed" in the bin, which is often round.
The term "wastebasket" is occasionally used in
taxonomy
Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification.
A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...
to refer to less formal (and often
paraphyletic
In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...
) groupings that pose problems in classification (e.g., the proposed order
Insectivora
The order Insectivora (from Latin ''insectum'' "insect" and ''vorare'' "to eat") is a now-abandoned biological grouping within the class of mammals. Some species have now been moved out, leaving the remaining ones in the order Eulipotyphla, w ...
is considered a "
wastebasket taxon
Wastebasket taxon (also called a wastebin taxon, dustbin taxon or catch-all taxon) is a term used by some taxonomists to refer to a taxon that has the sole purpose of classifying organisms that do not fit anywhere else. They are typically defined ...
", as it groups small mammals that do not fit nicely into other taxa), and the
Nilo-Saharan language family
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50–60 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of the Nile meet. T ...
is sometimes called "
Greenberg's wastebasket", as it was a grouping made by him to fit the languages of Africa that did not fall into the other groups,
Afroasiatic
The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...
,
Niger–Congo and
Khoisan
Khoisan , or (), according to the contemporary Khoekhoegowab orthography, is a catch-all term for those indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who do not speak one of the Bantu languages, combining the (formerly "Khoikhoi") and the or ( in t ...
.
Examples
File:Public Garbage Bin in Nacka.jpg, Public waste container in Nacka
Nacka () is the municipal seat of Nacka Municipality and part of Stockholm urban area in Sweden. The municipality's name harks back to a 16th-century industrial operation established by the Crown at Nacka farmstead where conditions for water mil ...
, Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
File:Tampere trash bin.jpg, Waste container in Tampere
Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...
, Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
File:Taiwan 2009 Taipei Waste Containers throughout Liberty Plaza with National Theater in background FRD 7440.jpg, Waste containers at the National Theater in Taipei
Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...
, Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
File:GarbageMonsters.jpg, Art on waste containers
File:Dolphin-trashcan-july09.jpg, Animal trash can where the opening is the mouth
File:Sardina wastebin.jpg, Waste container in Tarifa
Tarifa (, Arabic: طريفة) is a Spanish municipality in the province of Cádiz, Andalusia. Located at the southernmost end of the Iberian Peninsula, it is primarily known as one of the world's most popular destinations for windsports. Tarifa ...
, Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
File:Bins sea.jpg, Waste containers in Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
See also
*
Bin bug
The term "bin bug" was coined in August 2006 by the British media to refer to the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips by some local councils to monitor the amount of domestic waste created by each household. The system works by havi ...
*
Clever Bins
Clever Bins Limited was a UK company that provided solar-powered street litter bins that displayed digital outdoor advertising.
Description
The Clever Bins came with A2 paper sized display panels, lit up by directional LED beams. These used ...
*
Compost
Compost is a mixture of ingredients used as plant fertilizer and to improve soil's physical, chemical and biological properties. It is commonly prepared by decomposing plant, food waste, recycling organic materials and manure. The resulting m ...
*
Pot farming
Container gardening or pot gardening/farming is the practice of growing plants, including edible plants, exclusively in wikt:container, containers instead of planting them in the ground. A container in gardening is a small, enclosed and usually ...
*
Push the Talking Trash Can
Push the Talking Trash Can was a radio-controlled robot which made daily rounds throughout Tomorrowland at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure Park, Hong Kong Disneyland park, Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disneyland in Japan and formerly the Mag ...
*
Recycling bin
A recycling bin (or recycle bin) is a container used to hold recyclables before they are taken to recycling centers. Recycling bins exist in various sizes for use inside and outside homes, offices, and large public facilities. Separate cont ...
*
Roll-off (dumpster)
In North America, a roll-off is a usually open top dumpster characterized by a rectangular footprint, utilizing wheels to facilitate rolling the dumpster in place. The container is designed to be transported by special roll-off trucks. There ar ...
*
Waste management
Waste management or waste disposal includes the processes and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its final disposal.
This includes the collection, transport, treatment and disposal of waste, together with monitoring ...
*
Oscar the Grouch
Oscar the Grouch is a Muppet character created by Jim Henson and Jon Stone for the PBS/HBO children's television program ''Sesame Street''. He has a green body, no visible nose, and lives in a trash can. Oscar's favorite thing is trash, as eviden ...
References
*
External links
Example of Waste Design for Recycling in Public Spaces
{{Authority control
Recycling
Street furniture
Waste containers