Homeowners Find Ways to Obscure Trash Cans

Some homeowners choose to conceal their city-issued trash cans with fencing, latticework, foliage or even brick. (SHNS photo by Eric Paul Zamora / The Fresno Bee) Garbage cans, recyclables and green-waste receptacles can clutter up a property owner's landscaping. (SHNS photo by Eric Paul Zamora / The Fresno Bee) An enclosure including white latticework surrounds and conceals trash. (SHNS photo by Eric Paul Zamora / The Fresno Bee)

They're big, they're bulky and they're ugly. Furthermore, whether they were provided by the local government or bought at a hardware store, solid waste containers for trash and recyclables can make streets look cluttered.

You can't get rid of them, since you need them to hold your trash. So where's the best place to hide these bins while they aren't on the curb, and what's the best way to do it?

Most people keep their bins behind a fence. But some prefer not to, and for others it's not an option.

"Even people who have a fence sometimes don't want to put them there because the bins take a lot of work to take them out," says Rene Flores, solid waste supervisor for Visalia, Calif.

What are the alternatives? Leaving the bins on the curb isn't the answer. In most cities, ordinances prohibit trash containers from being left more than a day after the scheduled collection.

Solid waste containers also shouldn't be visible from the road. If people don't put their containers behind a fence, they can put them behind their house or in the garage, says Sally Lopez, recycling coordinator for Fresno, Calif.

"Some people will put the bins between hedges and the house," says Flores. "Some people put up a lattice, grow plants on it and hide the bins behind that. With plants growing on the lattice, it looks real nice."

That's what Louise and Harry Sussman of Fresno decided to do about 10 years ago. "I don't like to see the trash cans," says Louise Sussman, his wife. "They are big and ugly, and there are three of them."

The Sussmans built a lattice enclosure to store the bins. A pot of begonias and a pink azalea grow in front of the lattice.

They wanted to hide the trash cans "to make the driveway aesthetically more pleasing," says Louise Sussman.

Linda and Jim Dubbels, also of Fresno, also had a similar idea. When they had to raise their picket fence after installing a backyard pool about 10 years ago, they decided to nail lattice across the top to extend the height. They also decided to build a lattice fence around their solid waste containers.

"We didn't want to look at them," says Linda Dubbels.

The desire of the Dubbelses and the Sussmans to creatively hide their bins is understandable, Lopez says.

"If you can image streets of containers, it becomes unsightly," she says.