How Often Should You Clean Your Trash Bins? A Vermont Season Guide

How often to clean trash bins in Vermont comes down to the season: for most households, every four weeks from roughly June through September, and every two to three months the rest of the year. Homes with pets, diapers or a lot of meat packaging should stay on a monthly schedule year round. A bin that holds bagged trash and almost no food can get by with a cleaning each season.

That's the rule of thumb we use when people ask which plan to pick. The rest of this guide explains why the seasons change the answer, and how to tell when your bin is overdue.

Quick answer: how often to clean trash bins

Summer: heat, flies and maggots

Summer is when bins go bad fast. A dark plastic cart sitting in the sun at the end of a driveway gets hot inside, and anything wet at the bottom starts to rot quickly. Vermont summers are humid, which doesn't help.

Flies find that residue and lay eggs in it. If you've ever lifted a lid in August and found the bottom of the can moving, you've seen the result. Maggots aren't a sign that you're doing anything unusual. They are a sign that liquid and food bits collected somewhere a bag didn't cover.

In summer, monthly cleaning is the schedule that actually keeps up. Between cleanings:

• Bag everything, and tie the bags. Loose scraps are what flies want.
• Keep meat and fish trimmings in the freezer until the night before pickup.
• Park the bin in the shade if you have the choice.
• Keep the lid fully closed. A lid propped open by an overstuffed bag is an open door.

Fall: bears, apples and the holidays

Fall weather is easier on bins, but this is when bears are eating as much as they can before winter, and a smelly trash can is an easy meal. Late-season cookouts, Thanksgiving leftovers, and game-processing scraps during hunting season all end up in the cans.

A clean can that smells like nothing is less interesting to a bear, a raccoon, or the neighbor's dog. We cover the full list of bear-proofing steps, including what Vermont Fish & Wildlife recommends, in our guide to keeping bears and pests out of your trash.

A good fall habit: one thorough cleaning in October or November, so you go into winter with a clean bin instead of a summer's worth of residue frozen to the bottom.

Winter: frozen bins and frozen lids

Cold slows bacteria down, so bins smell much less in a Vermont winter. That's the good news. The bad news is that liquid at the bottom of the can freezes solid, bags freeze to the walls, and sometimes the lid freezes shut. Whatever is stuck in there doesn't go away. It waits.

You don't need monthly cleaning in January for most homes. Every two to three months is plenty. If your plan is quarterly, one winter cleaning keeps the layer at the bottom from getting thick.

Two winter tips:

• Don't pour water in a bin to "rinse" it in freezing weather. You just make an ice block.
• Keep the bin out of the way of the plow and the snowbank. A cracked cart is harder to keep clean.

Spring and mud season: the thaw

When things thaw out in March and April, everything that froze into the bottom of the can over the winter thaws with it. That's often the first time in months people notice their bin smells.

Spring is also when bears wake up. Vermont Fish & Wildlife recommends storing garbage containers in a shed, garage or basement until pickup day, double-bagging smelly garbage, and cleaning cans with a deodorizer (Vermont Fish & Wildlife, Living with Black Bears FAQs).

A deep clean in spring is the single most useful cleaning of the year if you only do one. It clears out winter's buildup before the heat arrives.

Signs your trash bin is overdue for a cleaning

Ignore the calendar for a second. Clean the bin when you notice any of these:

• You smell it before you open it.
• Flies are waiting when you lift the lid.
• There's a dark, sticky layer on the bottom that doesn't come off with a hose.
• The bin was knocked over or gone through by an animal.
• A bag broke or leaked inside it.
• You've just moved in and have no idea when the previous owner last cleaned it.

What changes how often you need to clean

A few things matter more than people expect:

• Food scraps. Since July 1, 2020, Vermont's Universal Recycling Law has kept food scraps out of the trash (Vermont DEC, Universal Recycling). That helps the trash cart, but the food scrap bin or compost tote is now the smelliest container in a lot of households. It needs cleaning too.
• Pet waste and diapers. These are the fastest way to a bin that smells all the time.
• Sun vs. shade. A cart in the sun all afternoon goes bad faster.
• How many people. More people means more trash and more chances for a torn bag.

If you clean your own bins, avoid these mistakes

Plenty of people wash their own cans, and that's fine. A few habits cause more trouble than they solve:

• Mixing cleaners. Never combine bleach with ammonia or with acidic cleaners. The fumes are dangerous, and a trash can is a confined space you lean right into.
• Rinsing toward the street. Whatever comes out of a trash can (grease, rotten food, pet waste) shouldn't run down the gutter to a storm drain. Pick a spot where the water soaks into the ground away from drains, wells and vegetable gardens.
• Washing in freezing weather. Water left in the bottom turns into an ice block with the grime locked inside.
• Putting the lid down on a wet can. Let it dry upside down first. A damp, closed bin smells sour fast.
• Skipping the lid and rim. The underside of the lid and the top edge collect drips every time a bag goes in. That's often where the smell is coming from.

Cold water and a brush will never fully remove the greasy film that holds odor. That's the main thing hot water does better.

Matching a schedule to a plan

Our plans line up with the schedules above: monthly (every 4 weeks, 2 bins included) for $30, every 2 months for $40, quarterly for $50, or a one-time deep clean of 2 bins for $65. Extra bins can be added. If you're on the fence, start with a one-time clean in spring or summer and see how long it lasts before the smell comes back.

For a full walkthrough of how a curbside cleaning works and what you get, read what a trash can cleaning service does, or see our trash bin cleaning service page. We clean bins in Rutland City, Castleton, Fair Haven and other towns we serve.

Book a cleaning

You can choose a plan and start date on the booking page. If you'd rather talk it through, call (802) 558-3533, Monday through Saturday, 7am to 5pm.