How Commercial Trash Receptacles Can Help Prevent Littering in Parks

Litter negatively impacts the environment and everyone in it. It can distract from a park’s natural beauty or dim the allure of a restaurant patio. Adding commercial trash is one of many easy ways to reduce litter in your space. 

Trash cans prevent littering by offering a designated space for trash. Wabash Valley Furnishings can help you find, place and use trash cans for a cleaner, attractive commercial area. 

Solution to Littering: How to Use Commercial Trash Receptacles

Strategic use of commercial trash receptacles can help lower litter in public parks. When thinking about how to reduce littering most effectively, consider placement, amount, design, and more for increased results. 

Carefully Position Your Trash Cans

Location and spacing are crucial to placing trash cans effectively because the distance to trash cans impacts their effectiveness. The Walt Disney Company analyzed customer behavior surrounding trash and placed a trash can within 27 feet from customers at all times. If the distance increases, people are less likely to properly discard trash, so littering increases as well. 

Being strategic with where you place the cans can significantly increase their effectiveness and help you purchase fewer. Record litter data to find out where it’s best to place the trash cans in your area. Analyze the amount and type of litter. This way, you’ll know exactly what litter to eliminate and what trash receptacles to include. 

Generally, there should always be trash cans located at transition points. Most litter happens at entrances while people empty their bags or grab a snack. Consider how people move around the area to optimize their use. Seating areas, benches, and tables are other musts for trash can placements.

Add More Trash Cans

The number of trash receptacles significantly impacts litter. According to The Allegheny Front, people are more likely to litter when there are fewer trash receptacles around. You’ll need enough trash cans to cover all the positions around your establishment.

Adding more trash cans encourages good habits in visitors. Contextual demands, like plenty of receptacles readily available, play a role in litter behavior, even though it heavily relies on the individual. To combat litter in your area, place sufficient options for visitors. 

Emphasize Recycling

Recycling bins or recycling receptacles also help to reduce littering and keep material out of landfills. There are different decomposition rates for materials — paper can take between two and five months to decompose, while plastic can sit in a landfill for 500 years or more. 

Adding commercial recycling containers alongside your trash cans helps people make environmentally conscious choices. You can place recycling bins alongside or separate from your trash containers. 

Incorporate Signs

Some people may need an extra reminder to dispose of trash properly. Place signs in densely populated areas to encourage people to throw their trash away.

When designing your signs, there are four main steps to achieve when designing your sign:

1. Catch the pedestrian’s attention. 
2. Display easy-to-understand information. 
3. Change their attitude and behavior. 
4. Motivate them to take your desired action — throwing away trash.

Images are the best for signs since they are easy to see and understand. Picture and icon signs result in better performance regarding proper disposal behavior rather than signs that only have words. Just like the cans themselves, position matters when it comes to where to place signage. To reduce litter, hang signage at eye level, above your trash receptacles, or directly on them.

Provide Outlets for Cigarette Litter 

Cigarettes are the most common type of litter — they make up 38% of all litter from pedestrians and motorists. Cigarettes contain toxins that can get into water supplies and poison wildlife if not disposed of properly. There is no exact timeline for how long they take to decompose, but some scientists estimate between 500 to 1,000 years for a single cigarette butt. Still-lit cigarettes can be a factor that contributes to human-caused wildfires. 

In public spaces, like parks, the number of ash receptacles has a significant influence on cigarette littering. Incorporating attractive cigarette urns like the Classic Collection Ash Urn from Wabash Valley Furnishings can encourage smokers to stop and extinguish their cigarettes. 

Keep Trash Cans Covered

If you don’t adequately cover your trash cans, weather and animals can knock over the cans and scatter litter everywhere. Secure your trash cans and invest in durable covers that last through any condition. 

You might consider a dome top for maximum weather protection, but you still need to consider visitors’ interactions with it. They need to open the door to throw their trash away, so you’d have to clean the covers. Keeping a clean trash can lid encourages people to use it. Hooded and flat lids can also protect from rain and wind and protect your park from flyways. 

Use Colorful Trash Cans

Using colorful ones will help them stand out, grab guests’ attention and make them easy to find. Since they’re easier to locate, visitors may be more likely to throw away their trash instead of littering. Brightly colored, themed or decorative commercial trash cans add a pop of color to your outdoor space and can even promote a specific brand. 

If you have receptacles for different uses — like recycling or pet waste — color-coding them will promote awareness and keep disposables orderly. The 55 Gallon Outdoor Trash Receptacle comes in a wide variety of colors, including bright red, that are easy to see from any angle. 

Discover the Outdoor Trash Receptacles Offered by Wabash Valley

Adding and effectively placing trash receptacles can lower the amount and impact of litter in your public space. Wabash Valley offers a variety of durable, functional, high-end furnishings like commercial-grade waste receptacles. Our commercial trash cans are ideal for multiple industries with numerous colors, styles, and finishes to fit your personal needs. You can filter through a price range, product line, collection, bonnet type, door and lid styles, mounts, patterns and more. We offer cans with 8- and 14-inch diameter openings and three different sizes — 22, 32 and 55 gallons. All of our cans are designed to withstand the outdoor elements. Contact Wabash Valley for a quote and prevent litter in your park with stunning trash receptacles.