apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

if its in the office... which is basically non food items, then no, no liner. if its the kitchen.. YES.

What Lily said.

Garbage cans gross me out. While I use reusable grocery bags when shopping my husband generally doesn't, so we have a small amount of paper grocery bags that come into the house. Our garbage and recycling, in every room, is a paper grocery bag. Bags get reused, I'm not wasting money on plastic garbage liners, we get a new (and clean) garbage "can" every time we take out the old one, and I'm not sending extra plastic back into the environment.

If it's just paper or fabric or other dry things I'll dump out the contents in the outside trash can and reuse the bag.

Works really well for us. My husband complained for a while that we didn't have a "proper" trash can, but we've been doing it this way for years now and I LOVE not having stinky cans around the house.

I use them in the kitchen, of course, because not to is just nasty. And if we're using a diaper pail at any time, that has a liner, too.

But for everything else, no. I find it's really not necessary and I wash them all out frequently (loving have a good sized dishwasher!). It works well. You'd be surprised at how quickly even paper trash gets gross!

Only the kitchen and bathroom bins. The office and bedroom mainly get paper and tissues (although I've been using hankies more lately, so less of those) and other easily dumpable waste. I found I was just dumping it and leaving the liner in indefinitely, so what was the point of that? And we've just had plastic shopping bags banned here, so there are fewer to use up!

Yes, in the kitchen in the cabinet under the sink! Otherwise, no.

Absolutely YES in the kitchen, no everywhere else! The little ones in the bathrooms get rinsed often and washed in the dishwasher occasionally... I use square IKEA baskets in my office that fit on my bookshelf and blend with the baskets used for other storage - one for recycling and one for non-recycling... I just make sure not to put anything yucky in them and they can be dumped and put straight back on the shelf. The only other thing we use a bag for is scooping the litter box... for obvious reasons...

yes everywhere for me. my husband doesn't get it, he thinks it's stupid...probably because he NEVER cleaned out his trash cans. they were so gross...after cleaning gum, hair gel, beard trimmings and all manner of other REALLY disgusting stuff out of the bottom of his trash cans when we moved in together, i've got to say: the liners are worth it, no matter how ugly they are.

(by the way: i use plastic grocery bags for liners, so i'm not buying any specific liners for our smaller trash cans)

Only in the kitchen. I don't see the need in the little cans and bins around the house.

I line my kitchen trashcan only.

I don't use trash cans, I use a small plastic shopping bag for garbage. I do this because of the heat and humity in Hong Kong I have to throw the garbage out every day otehrwise it makes the whole flat smell and attracts all kinds of bugs. I learned this the hard way. All non-paper recycling goes through the dish washer and placed in a bucket when it's dry and paper goes in a paper shopping bag for collection once a week.

I use a plastic liner in the kitchen can, but not elsewhere. My main reason is that my cat *eats* them, so I can't have them unless the can has a lid! Also, since I don't have a compost bin, disposal, or washing machine, I have 'wet' trash that doesn't work with a paper bag.

I really wish that i could bring myself to not using liners, but I find garbage quite gross. I live in Toronto and the city is really trying to reduce plastic bag waste and so you have to pay for plastic bags at all stores. I completely support this initiative and I have reusable bags to do all my shopping. I also have purchased plastic garbage bags which we use for bins. @ Inkstainedwriter, I dont think Im being germaphobic to say that I find washing your garbage bins in the dishwasher unsanitary and gross.

I HATE the look of a liner BUT. I hate having to wash out the can and let it dry.

So three bins in the Kitchen. We line for food waste (this is sent to greenbin with Toronto compost program), not for the straight recycle items, and then the non recycle bin does get one though it could do without.

Bath yes.

Office/bedroom no

*When I was younger my my mother had a bathroom trashcan that had a hard liner that would come out. Thinking back I think what it really was - was a planter with harder type plastic liner. It was like a can in a can as it had no hole and went up the sides to just under the lip. You would remove the hard one, empty and clean that out. I have been looking for something like this for like 8 years. maybe time to look at planters?

Having lived in a city with major rat problem, I generally have unlined trashcans for paper items, and then use a plastic bag to corral all food/organic items used, and throw it out everyday after dinner/lunch etc. It prevents bugs and rodents not having a bunch of food sitting in a trashcan, even just for a day.

I line the bathroom trash, but nothing else. Any kitchen trash gets emptied into the dumpster in the morning when I take the dog out. I usually re-use other containers for it though (food wrappers or dog food bags). They're going to the trash anyway, and since we have a dumpster and not curb-side pickup, it doesn't matter whether or not trash is properly contained in a normal trash bag.

The paper recycling bin is in the office, because that's where most of the paper "trash" is generated. It doesn't have a liner, since it's not gross.

I line all trash cans because you never know what is going to get tossed into them and I really have no desire to scrape or otherwise clean out the bottom of my trash can.

To combat the look of plastic, the bathroom trash can has a lid with a step opener (and really, who wants to look into what goes in there anyways?) and the office and bedroom trash cans are under tables and taller than the bags so the grocery bags just sorta sit inside them since nothing heavy goes in them. Problem solved.

Kitchen and bathroom yes, living room/landing strip, which is in leather, no.

All lined. The only one we actually buy the bags for is the kitchen can since it needs to be strong on trash day (I don't want to pick up the stuff after it has been sitting there a few days). The rest get lined with those plastic bags you seem to come home with a half dozen of them after you go to the store.

The reason for all lined is someone will be irresponsible and put something in a random can (like gum, food wrapper, etc) and then I have to scrub the can. As I'm sure most know, you can be the most responsible person - but you can't always trust others to have the exact same amount of responsibility.

I line the kitchen and bathroom cans. Obviously there is going to be some nasty stuff going into them. The bedroom, office and entryway cans get mostly paper (and a few dead leaves off the houseplants) – no liner necessary.

Kitchen garbage goes into a paper grocery bag under the sink - nothing to line.

Wastebaskets elsewhere never get anything wet inside - so no need to use liners.

IMO - Spending money on plastic bags and liners is a waste of both money and resources.

The only can I don't use a liner for is the recycle bin. I just dump the small bin into the large bin outside. I do that just because I don't know if the standard plastic garbage bags are recyclable.

BTW - for dumping cat litter, I use the dry cat food bags to dump the used litter in. They are going to get thrown out anyway, so I reuse them to store the waste.

I line garbage cans, except for my office one, which I only use for shreddings.
It's absolutely gross to not use liners when you have anything wet or damp go in the can. As for the dishwasher comment, right on. I do run my little cans through the dishwasher, about once a week. It's not gross, and it's not unhygenic. Quite the opposite. To not wash your cans are gross and unhygenic!

Our main kitchen trash can always gets lined (we use the tall Seventh Generation ones to fit our awkward skinny/tall can). We also tend to line our bathroom garbage bin purely for the sake of hygiene since we don't clean it out after every trash day, and we use thin compostable bags to line those (they are also great for picking up after dogs).

Our bedroom bin doesn't get much in the way of anything but clothing price tags and paper products, so we don't bother lining it for the most part, and when we do a big trash round-up we just dump the contents into one of the other bags.

I do line the kitchen garbage can with a plastic liner, simply because wet, as well as dry garbage goes in that one and even there, it needs to be washed every now and then and paper bags just get soggy when even damp so they don't work too well when I have to then schlepp them down 3 flights to the back door and down 2 more flights of stairs to the dumpsters out back.

The bathroom can does not always get a liner and generally doesn't need one as I rarely get anything totally nasty in that one and thus the can stays pretty clean most of the time.

The bedroom can, which is a mid sized can gets lots of trash, mostly paper and packaging from clothes and stuff I purchase and such and I line that as I sometimes end up with migranes which make me queasy and well, you know, and I've found out the hard way that if you toss your cookies into it and it has paper in it and you don't empty it for a couple of days or so, it gets GROSS for the stuff gets moldy (ick) and again, for traversing down stairs, it's often easier to carry since I am also taking out the kitchen garbage as well so that's how I go at it. Most junk mail gets tossed into the bins by the mailboxes anyhow so I don't bring any of that home and the shredder gets a plastic liner since shredded paper is a pain to deal with without making a mess everywhere.

We should be using as little plastic as we can -- it never breaks down in landfills! Understandable for dirty kitchen use (though compost bags would reduce that need as well), but otherwise, plastic liners are really not necessary.