Neutralising Bin Odours

Yorkielass

In our new flat our kitchen is just an area off our living room with a big arch between the two and we're finding that smells from any waste food in the bin is making the living room and then the whole flat smell bad.

No garden so can't put vegetable peelings etc in a compost bin and we don't waste lots of food but there's normally a bit of food left over, e.g. a small amount of last nights spag bol.

We bought a new bin when we moved which is smaller so we empty it more often into the communal bin store out in the car park - but I don't really want to be going out there after every meal with stuff - so any tips for keeping a bin smelling nice/not too bad.

Don't want to use lots of commercial air freshners but anything I can put out in the living room/kitchen generally that's not too strong would also be good.

Cheers

squeaky

There are quite a number of threads right at the start of the Cleaning section of the MEGA Index sticky at the top of the forum about air freshening, and in the Zillions post there's two links (on the same line) for odour treatment and one for the bin - just follow the link:-

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=47563

black-saturn

Put a light dusting of bicarbonate of soda in the bottom of the bin after cleaning it out.

diamondsky

Hi,

I have a swing bin under my sink and didn't like the smell of food when I would open the door to get something in the cupboard.

I got a cheap throwaway cloth, the ones you can buy on a roll and used lavender oil on the cloth. I put the cloth under the bag in the bin. When I open the bin now, all I smell is lavender. When I stop smelling the lavender, I just change the cloth. Easy and the kitchen smells nice too. Use whatever oil you like.

Yoga_Girl

We clean our bins out with water & tea-tree oil, helps to remove any lingering smells.

HOLsale

black-saturn wrote:

Put a light dusting of bicarbonate of soda in the bottom of the bin after cleaning it out.

i do this two but if i've got a smell that i need to hide right away (unexpected guests, can't find the source of the smell etc) i sprinkle vanilla powder that i bought from an ethnic grocer.

i can't seem to figure out how to use this powder properly in food (tastes horrible!) but it smells heavenly and is white just like bicarb... simple sprinkle it in the bin under the bag, some in the bag and even a we light dusting througout the air... you'll only smell vanilla for several hours