You Don't Need That Many Trash Cans at Home

My home has only two trash cans: one in the kitchen and one in the living room.

The kitchen can is just for food waste. That kind of trash often involves liquids, eggshells, fruit peels, bones, and so on, so it needs one container to collect it all.

The living room can takes all the trash from everywhere except the kitchen and the bathroom: balled-up paper, food wrappers, and now and then a banana peel.

I used to like keeping a trash can each in the living room, the bedroom, and my computer room, for the convenience of tossing things anytime.

But later I changed how I did it.

First, too many trash cans actually make things less efficient. With trash scattered everywhere, they never get emptied on the same schedule. Some fill up fast, some slowly, and the usual result is that I deal with them all at once only when I can't stand looking at them anymore or suddenly remember.

Second, too much convenience isn't necessarily a good thing. I used to keep a trash can next to my computer desk, so I could toss trash without even getting up, and because of that I'd sit for hours without moving. Now that the can is in the living room, I have to get up and walk every time I throw something away, which gets my body moving along the way. That actually works as a reminder to stay healthy.

But it was exactly because it was so convenient that I always sat at my computer for long stretches. With the trash can in the living room, I have to walk there no matter what whenever I throw something out, so I get to stand up and move around a bit.

Of course, that's because I'm the kind of person who has to put trash in the can the moment I make it. I can't stand having trash on my computer desk, and my computer desk is where I work.

What's more, I don't think the living room can even needs a bag in it.

Once there's a bag in it, I always figure that since it's in a bag, and this kind of trash doesn't smell anyway, I can just press it down a bit more.

Since taking the bag out, I've never had the urge to press the trash down. As soon as the trash starts to pile over the top, I grab a bag, dump the trash into it, and take it out.

This no-buffer setup forced me to build the habit of emptying it right away.

The bathroom used to have a can too, but later I got rid of it. In the damp bathroom, a metal can tends to rust and stain the floor, and a plastic one breeds bacteria.

Now I use two hooks to hang a trash bag up off the floor, away from water. I change it regularly so nothing piles up.

Really, throwing out trash and how we treat our things come down to the same thing.

Every piece of trash used to be an object.

Once it becomes trash, it should go where it belongs.

If it still has value, it should go back to where it's useful.

Don't pile things up carelessly. Don't put off dealing with them.

That's what respect for every object looks like.