To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, organics recycling became mandatory for all California residences and businesses by Senate Bill 1383, which began enforcement in 2022. California became the first state in the US to require all single family, multi-family and commercial business to divert food scraps and yard trimmings from landfill.  

For the most families without yard compost bins, food scraps should be finally disposed in green bins/carts and then collected by garbage pickup trucks for industrial composting. Some food scraps may be disposed in sewage with the help of sink disposals.  However excessive nutrients in the water could cause a risk of ecosystem change in downstream. In recent years, San Francisco bay has this excessive nutrient issue.  Clearly, composting is the better choice from an environmental perspective.

Households may balance benefit, convenience, cost and hygiene issues to decide how to deal with their food scraps. To dispose food scraps to curbside green bins, the families may probably need to buy BPI compostable bags which are easy to rip and leak. Then food scrap liquid, odors and insects become problems of the green bins and also the green bins need to be cleaned often.  Furthermore, the green bins are bulky and not easy to be cleaned.  Above issues may cause that the percentage of regularly placing food scraps in the green bins is not high for the households.  The percentage number may be less than 50% for some cities.

For a large percentage of households, the amount of food scraps in a week is relatively small (a few gallons) comparing to the capacity of a curbside green bin which is usually larger than 30 gallons.  A small curbside green bin is ideal for food scraps because it is easy for lining the bins with paper or compostable bags, and is also easy for cleaning.  However, this ideal small curbside green bin is not practical because of current garbage pickup truck design and a large capacity requirement for yard trimmings. Therefore a capacity adjustable green bin which can handle both yard trimmings and food scraps easily is desirable.

Homspen is providing a solution and option for some households that makes disposing food scraps in the curbside green bins easy and clean.

Introduction of Canhanger

If you don’t want to have an unpleasant experience of compostable bag rip and leak when you drop the bags to a curbside green cart/bin, and

If you don’t want to clean often a green cart with odors, garbage juice, sticky food scrap residues or insects, and

If you usually have a small amount (less than 3 gallon) of wet food scraps per week and have yard trimmings occasionally,

A patented can hanger (CanhangerTM) may be helpful.

To use a current model of the Canhanger,

  • Your curbside green cart has to have a turnover rim with a capacity of 32-65 gallon, and
  • You have a step-on Amazon Basics trash can with a bucket/liner of 3.1 gallon capacity.

*For different rims or trash cans, new products are under development.

Pros

● Improve hygiene of green carts.

● Prevent a consequence of bag rip or leaks in the green carts.

● Easy to handle wet food scraps with a bucket.

● Much easier to clean the bucket than a green cart.

● No need to tie a compostable bag filled up with food scraps in the bucket.

● No need to pick up the compostable bag from the bucket

● Able to line the bucket with paper.

● Reduce consumption of compostable bags.

● Easy to mount or remove the Canhanger from the green cart.

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Q&A

Do I need to worry that the trash bucket falls into a trash pickup truck?

A Canhanger has two secure latches which can lock up the trash bucket automatically. The latch is specially designed to reduce the chance of losing the bucket. Even just one of the latches can prevent the bucket to drop out.  However, negligence on mounting the bucket without locking it with the latches or without fastening the Canhanger with a green cart will cause loss of the bucket or with the Canhanger together.  A good habit of checking the lock status by lifting the bucket after inserting the bucket into the Canhanger could avoid the loss.

We already have a countertop pail. Why do we need a Canhanger with a 3-gallon trash bucket?

The 3-gallon trash bucket with the Canhanger can be your transfer container. You can unload food scraps from the pail to the trash bucket daily in kitchen instead of a curbside green cart in your car garage or yard.  The trash bucket with the Canhanger can also be the replacement of the pail and save your time of unloading food scraps and cleaning the pail daily. You can toss food scraps into the trash bucket directly.

Can I put other organic waste in the green cart after mounting Canhanger?

Yes, but only a small amount of organic waste. The bucket and Canhanger will block some waste to drop out if the bottom section of the green cart is filled with a lot of organic waste. It is recommended that wet food scraps and soiled paper are disposed in the bucket and other relatively dry organic waste such as pizza boxes and yard trimmings are disposed in the green cart.

How to handle odors in a 3-gallon trash bucket?

You can attach an odor absorber on the cap of the trash can.  You can also spread some baking soda or expired flour on food scraps.  Usually, kitchen is a place where air temperature is lower than that of car garage or yard in summer. Thus, odor and insect issues can be improved if the food scraps are kept in the trash can in the kitchen.

What are the cons of a Canhanger?

A Canhanger can only work with a specific trash bucket. Current model S1 can only work with an Amazon Basics trash can with 3.1 gallon capacity.  

The 3.1 gallon capacity is only useful for households who usually generate food scraps with a volume less than 3 gallon per week.

The current model of Canhanger can only work with a green cart that having a turn-over rim.

What is the limitation of a Canhanger?

Apart from the volume capacity, weight capacity is also limited. Weight of 20 lbs is the maximum limit that the current Canhanger can support.