The best outdoor trash can enclosures

The Keter Store-It-Out MIDI for two 32-gallon cans, and the Prime XL if you have modern 63 or 64-gallon wheeled carts — which most enclosures will not take. Both have a lift lid, which is the feature that decides whether you actually use it.

#	Product	Best for	Price
01	Keter Store-It-Out MIDI Outdoor Resin Storage ShedA 30-cubic-foot resin cabinet that takes two 32-gallon cans, with a lift lid so you can use it without opening the front.	Best two-can enclosure	Check price on Amazon #ad How we make money
02	Keter Store-It-Out Prime XL Outdoor Resin Storage ShedThe XL, which takes two 63-gallon wheeled carts and lets you lock the doors while leaving the top open.	Best for wheeled carts	Check price on Amazon #ad How we make money
03	Suncast Dual 33 Gallon Trash Hideaway CabinetA resin cabinet that swallows two 33-gallon cans, so trash and recycling disappear behind one door.	Best two-can cabinet	Check price on Amazon #ad How we make money
04	Keter Store-It-Out MAX Outdoor Horizontal Storage ShedThe largest of the horizontal Keters, sized for cans plus the recycling crates, bag rolls and tools that pile up next to them.	Best all-round outdoor cabinet	Check price on Amazon #ad How we make money
05	Suncast Trash Hideaway Refuse Container, 33 GallonA latching-lid resin can with a wicker texture, for the deck or patio where a municipal cart would look wrong.	Best for patios and decks	Check price on Amazon #ad How we make money

• What it actually fits. The single most important thing, and the commonest disappointment. An enclosure sized for two 32-gallon cans will not take a 64-gallon cart.
• Whether there is a lift lid. Without one, every bag means opening two doors and reaching past a can. This is what determines whether the enclosure gets used or worked around.
• Ventilation. An unventilated box full of trash in summer is worse than no box. Built-in vents are worth having.
• Material behavior outdoors. Resin that will not crack, rust, peel or rot, and that holds up in UV.
• Locking, and honesty about it. Whether a padlock is supported, and whether the manufacturer claims more security than resin doors provide.
• Footprint. These are large objects and the side return is what usually rules them out.

Methodology · disclosure.

This is where enclosures go wrong, and it goes wrong in one specific way: the enclosure market grew up around 32-gallon cans, while collection moved to 64 and 96-gallon wheeled carts. A lot of what is on sale simply will not take what your municipality gave you.

1. Step 01

   Measure your cart, including the lid closed

   Width, depth and height. Then measure it again with the lid open, because you need clearance for that inside the enclosure or you will be pulling the cart out every time.

2. Step 02

   Check the enclosure's stated capacity, not its volume

   Cubic feet is not the useful number. Manufacturers that state 'fits two 32-gallon cans' or 'fits two 63-gallon cans' are telling you what you need to know — Keter does this, and it is the reason those are the products here.

3. Step 03

   Measure the site, including the door swing

   The Prime XL is roughly 4.75 by 2.6 feet on the ground, plus the space the doors need to open. A side return that fits the footprint but not the door swing is not a site.

4. Step 04

   Check the ground is level and firm

   A resin enclosure on soft or uneven ground racks over time and the doors stop closing. A paving slab base solves it permanently and costs very little.

It sounds like a detail and it is the difference between an enclosure you use and one you stop using by week three.

Without a lift lid, disposing of a bag means opening two doors, reaching past one cart to lift the lid of the other, dropping the bag in, closing the lid, and closing both doors. With one, you lift the top and drop the bag in. Guess which one the household does at 11pm in the rain.

Keter's split locking on the Prime XL takes this a step further and is genuinely well thought through: lock the doors so nothing can be dragged out, leave the top unlocked so anyone can still drop a bag in. That is the right division — the security you want is against something taking cans out, not against family members putting trash in.

An enclosure is not the only answer to “the cans look bad and blow over”, and it is one of the more expensive ones.

• A screen or a run of fence panels. Hides the cans, costs less, needs no measuring against cart dimensions, and lets air move freely — which an enclosure does not.
• A strap to a fence post. Solves blowing over and animal tipping for a very small amount of money. Straps compared.
• The garage. Free, if you have one. The trade is odor: a garage compounds heat, no ventilation and a week-long hold. That case in detail.
• A patio can that does not look like a cart, if the waste is generated outdoors rather than going to the curb. Free-standing outdoor cans.

Where an enclosure genuinely earns its place is a household with two or three carts, no garage, and a front-of-house position where the cans are visible from inside. In that situation it is the right product and the alternatives do not really cover it.