Spring Cleaning: How to Clean Your Trash Cans

It’s that time of the year and spring cleaning has begun. If I’m being honest with you…I do big seasonal cleanings four times every year. Just not during the springtime. To get started I’ll go room to room making a list of everything that needs to be cleaned and things that need to be re-organized. Once I have a list compiled I’ll head out to the store to pick up supplies.

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Which reminds me…you should be replacing your brooms, dust pans, mop heads, toilet cleaning brushes, household sponges, etc. on a regular basis. If you’re not replacing them…make sure you’re cleaning them!!!

Last weekend I got busy cleaning all of our trash cans. This includes the kitchen trash can, the small waste baskets in all bedrooms & bathrooms, the medium-sized trash can in the home office and our two large outdoor garbage cans. Phew…that’s a lot of cans!

The best time to clean them is during a beautiful weather day. I know, the last thing you want to do when the weather is nice is CLEAN!

I take all of them outside and prepare them for cleaning. I like to use our garden hose to thoroughly rinse them down…inside and out! When it comes to disinfectant I love using Pine-Sol Original All-Purpose Cleaner. It does a great job at killing germs plus it smells nice too!

Add a gallon or two of water to your large cans and a 1/4 cup of Pine-Sol. For your smaller cans add a few inches of water and 1-2 cap-fulls of product. I like to let them sit and soak for about 30 minutes. I then use a cotton cloth to wipe them down inside and out. Once done I’ll dump them out in a special area on our property or you can pour the water down your drain. Use the garden hose again to rinse them out. Let them air dry in the sunshine!

When it comes to our large outdoor garbage cans I just spray 3-4 gallons of water inside each one and add a 1/2 cup of Pine-Sol. Let them sit for an hour. Dump out the water and rinse with your garden hose until clean. Let air dry. Yes…you should be cleaning them which helps to cut down germs and foul odors. They get nasty-stinky when you don’t clean them!

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