how to clean a kitchen bin

How to Clean a Kitchen Bin: A Step-By-Step Guide

Last Updated on January 10, 2023

A kitchen bin is a prime place for bacteria to grow and nasty smells to accumulate. As a result, you must wipe clean your bin regularly and understand how to look after it. This guide will look at how to clean a kitchen bin, including a quick daily clean and a thorough deep clean.

The Problem With a Kitchen Rubbish Bin

Kitchen bins are breeding grounds for bacteria. The culmination of lingering food particles, food waste, and other rubbish is where bacteria can thrive.

Also, if the food waste is left, it can attract flies. These, in turn, can be a breeding ground for maggots and larvae in your kitchen bin. There is nothing worse than opening your bin to see a swarm of flies burst out!

There is also the horrendous smell. Rotting and degrading food can quickly cause an incredible smell. A stinky bin is not something that you want in your kitchen! This is why it is important to keep your bin clean so that it is odour free.

How to Clean a Kitchen Bin: A Simple Guide

The process is relatively easy if you want to clean your kitchen bin! The key is to clean your bin often. Also, it is important to take care when emptying items into your bin.

If you are careless, you can easily spill food particles on your bin lid, down the sides, and inside. Place items in your bin slowly and carefully – this will help reduce the effort needed to clean your kitchen bin.

Regardless, to help, we have created a simple three-step guide below. This should be done regularly as part of your household chores!

Step 1: Use a Bin Liner!

The first step is to consider using a bin bag or bin liner. Many people throw their rubbish directly into their bin. However, there are pros as well as cons to this method.

On the advantage part, this is better for the environment as you use fewer plastic bags, but your bin is also prone to get dirty quickly.

In contrast, using a bin liner for pedal bins means that the rubbish goes directly into the bag and should never touch the sides of your bin. This should ultimately make cleaning the bin easier.

Think about which method you would prefer to use. If you don’t want to use bin bags, you must be prepared to clean your bin more often.

Step 2: Remove and Wipe the Lid

It is surprising how much dirt and grime get into your bin lid! This is often due to carelessness when filling your bin. It is quite easy to spill food or liquids onto the bin lid.

First, remove your bin lid, and don’t try to clean it while it is still attached to the inner container. Next, wipe it thoroughly using warm soapy water. You could also consider using a disinfectant spray, like Flash.

Make sure that you wipe it thoroughly. Often bin lids have grooves and indents where dirt and dust can accumulate.

Also, make sure that you open the bin lid and clean the opening mechanism. This is another area often rife with dirt. Lastly, make sure that you clean both the top side and underside of the lid.

Once you have given the lid a deep clean, dry it thoroughly with paper towels and set it to one side while working on the whole bin.

Step 3: Clean the Bin Interior

a pair of hands taking out trash

Next, you can tackle the main bin! How you approach this depends on the type of bin. For example, you may have a large wheelie bin, a compost bin, or a small pedal kitchen bin. Also, your kitchen bin may have a removable container inside.

We recommend cleaning wheelie bins outside as they are usually much larger. You could consider blasting it with a pressure washer to remove the worst grime and food mess.

Once you have given it an initial blast or wipe, you may want to use a mixture of soapy water and baking soda. Baking soda is an effective cleaning agent that can help remove any tough stains and odours.

With a baking soda and water mixture, you can now clean the interior part of the bin using a toilet brush or scourer. Please leave it to work for 30 minutes. This will allow the baking powder to loosen any grime.

You can then give it a thorough wipe again to remove the dirt. Ensure that you rinse it properly to get rid of the solution and any mess that worked loose. Let your bin dry in the sun, or use a towel.

Extra Cleaning Tips

When cleaning your bin, use rubber gloves to avoid getting any nasty food waste on your hands. You may also want to place old newspaper layers at the bottom of your bin and add a few drops of essential oil to prevent nasty odours for longer.

Bin Cleaning FAQs

Should You Throw Food Scraps Into Your Bin?

Ideally, not straight into the bin. Food scraps, particularly meat offcuts, will stain your bin and cause horrible smells when they start to rot. If you need to throw food waste into your bin, use bin bags to protect the casing.

Where Should You Store Your Bin?

This depends on what you throw into it regularly. Ideally, it would help if you store your bins outside. This will help prevent any nasty smells and stains in your kitchen. For example, you could throw rubbish straight into your wheelie bin. However, this may not be practical, and it requires more effort.

Keep Your Kitchen Bin Clean

We hope you have found this guide on how to clean a kitchen bin useful! It is necessary to keep on top of this process as kitchen bins are a prime place for the growth of bacteria. Also, food waste can easily attract flies, and you can end up with maggots in your kitchen bin. So be diligent and clean it often!

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