The best plastic trash cans

A garage, a utility room, a playroom or a rental you are leaving does not need a stainless can — it needs a pedal, a lid that stays shut and a bag that does not slip. This is that can. The Clorox odor protection is on the lid where the residue collects, the bag rings hold an ordinary 13-gallon liner, and a plastic body shrugs off the knocks that dent steel. It is also light enough to carry out one-handed, which a loaded stainless can is not.

A pedal is the part that fails on a cheap can. The TouchTop deletes it — the lid is held shut by a spring latch and opens when you push the panel, so the only moving part is the latch itself. That matters in a household with pets or a toddler, because a latched lid resists a nose or a hand in a way a free-hinged lid does not. Sterilite lists it for standard 13-gallon liners, the rectangular base sits flat against a wall, and the smooth-textured body actually wipes clean.

The gap in most houses is not 13 gallons or 2.5 gallons, it is the room that generates more than a vanity basket holds and less than a kitchen can. This covers it: a narrow rectangular body, the latch on the short end of the lid so it opens along the can rather than into the wall, and standard 8-gallon liners. Sterilite lists the same body as a recycling bin, which is the honest second use — paper in an office fills a can faster than trash does.

Small cans are chosen by footprint, not capacity, and almost every buying guide gets that backwards. This one is 7 inches wide and 13.3 deep, so it fills a gap a 13-gallon can cannot enter, and it still has the two things that make a can pleasant: a pedal, and a lid damped so it closes quietly rather than clapping. Push the lid back after stepping and it stays open for a cleaning job. The inner bucket lifts out, so emptying it does not mean carrying the whole can.

A dual-compartment can splits one body into two half-size buckets, and in a household that recycles heavily both halves fill at once. Two separate 13-gallon cans do not have that problem: you empty whichever one is full, the liners are the size you already buy, and if one of them ends up in the garage later it is still a whole can. Buying them as a pair gets you matching bodies and lids, which is the only reason not to buy two singles.

Most slim cans buy their width back by making you buy odd liners. This one does not — Sterilite lists standard 13-gallon bags for it, so the gap beside the fridge gets a hands-free can and you keep buying the same box of liners. The oversized lid covers the bag overhang that makes slim cans look untidy, and the long shallow footprint tucks against a wall rather than standing in a walkway.