apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Batteries AND ugly?

Having an auto-opening trash can makes a ton of sense but I think it's an unnecessary feature for a recycling bin. I have an auto-open trash can and it's wonderful when I'm working with raw meat and don't want to touch the can lid while I'm working.

A trash can with a step-on pedal would accomplish the same thing.

If you are already dedicating the time and space to recycle, I don't think the effort of opening a lid would be a factor.

And isn't the point of recycling to use less and reuse/recycle what we can? Isn't that defeated by buying an electronic plastic bin just for sorting? I vote for going to the thrift store (or your own closet) and repurposing bins found there.

not to mention there's one lid for both. SO -- every time you want to recycle a bottle, you have to smell the trash that maybe should've gone out last week.

I don't use a lid on my 'rubbish' bin or recycling bins. Since I compost almost all food scraps via the worm farm and don't normally eat meat, the rubbish mainly consists of non-recyclable packaging stuff, which only needs to be emptied every few weeks and doesn't smell or spread disease. Yay!

Sounds like just about everyone here (including me) is too green to need this. Yay!