Ready for . . . Designer Trash Cans?

Now that households separate trash for recycling, a large plastic bag is the most practical container. There’s also a rash of adorable trash receptacles on the market.

Most are for elsewhere in the house, but with all of the sorting done in the kitchen, they may work nicely for what little refuse is left there.

A sampling of decorative trash baskets at specialty stores includes those made of birch bark, woven wood, translucent plastic, coated paper, rubber, stainless steel, alabaster and glass mosaic. Prices range from about $20 to more than $300.

“When people are spending thousands of dollars for a new kitchen, a cheap plastic trash can doesn’t make sense,” according to Mona Williams, buyer for kitchen, pantry and storage items at the Container Store, a nationwide retailer with a store in Costa Mesa.

“Our customers want something that looks good and works well,” she says. “Function is No. 1, but function with great design and construction is the best of all worlds.”

The Container Store has about 20 options for kitchen trash, ranging from $10 for a simple plastic can to $130 for a 20-gallon metal “super bullet.” A divided container of white plastic, $39, has three removable bins.

“People aren’t sorting as much as they used to, because many communities have recycling programs where commingling of all recyclables is the rule,” Williams says. For them, a large container that can be lined with clear or blue plastic bags is most efficient, she says.

The Linen Gallery of Dallas stocks fancy containers, including one of mosaic glass edged in broken crockery ($330 from Ercole of New York). Store owner Goldie Craycroft says these designer trash cans are selling well, and they are a growing segment at trade shows.

Other Linen Gallery stock includes metal buckets covered in linen. Each has a painted design and a 3-D element such as a bowl of blueberries, $110; papier-ma^che containers painted with vintage scenes, $150; and metal buckets with painted birds or animals with a crackle glaze overlay, $300.

Craycroft says they are popular with decorators and their clients for powder rooms, master baths, studies and bedrooms.

“The one place people need an attractive basket is in bathrooms,” says Nancy Mullan, a New York decorator. “I usually try to put something especially attractive under the basin in the powder room.”

But she’s not so sure that other rooms need decorative trash containers.

“I don’t see the waste bucket as a fashion statement,” she says. “I want it to blend in to the rest of the room.”

For waste containers in her own home she bought metal buckets from the five-and-dime and painted and covered them with wallpaper to match each room’s decor.

While a container for trash is a convenience in any room, it’s a necessity in the kitchen, where most household refuse is generated.

For Mullan, “the aesthetics of kitchen trash are nonexistent. There really isn’t any way to make it look attractive, so the best thing to do is to find a way of hiding it.”

In kitchens she designs, it’s usually hidden under the sink. If more space is needed for recycling, she may install a Lazy Susan in a corner base cabinet. One ready-made unit holds three removable plastic bins.

While containers that are decorative and efficient are available for a price, there’s also the option of recycling what you already have.

Olsen’s favorite waste cans are large plastic pails with tight-fitting lids.

“We have a swimming pool, and chlorine granules come in these big plastic pails,” she says. “They make great holders for kitchen scraps that go into the garden or for almost anything else.”