How to Fix Your Stinky Kitchen Trash Can with Baking Soda

Everyone has a kitchen. Everyone also deals with mysterious food odors, funky refrigerator smells and stinky kitchen trash cans. But what if we don’t want those smells permeating our kitchen air? There’s a simple solution for that. I’ve already explained how to make your fridge smell better with vanilla extract, so now it’s time to tackle the trash can.

How to Eliminate Trash Can Odors

Every piece of your home needs TLC once in a while, so let’s take a step-by-step approach to deodorizing your kitchen trash can.

Step 1: Scrub with Baking Soda

Baking soda is a clean home’s best friend. You can use it for refrigerators, laundry, sinks, toilets, showers—basically anything in your home with a surface. It’s magic! For this process, we’re going to use it to scrub out our kitchen trash cans. Baking soda works because it has a naturally low pH level and works to counteract items with higher acidity.

So clean out your kitchen trash can of any loose garbage and scrub with warm water and baking soda. Then rinse and dry.

Step 2: Deodorize with Baking Soda

Isn’t that what we just did? Yes—but no. After you’ve finished giving your poor ol’ trash can a good scrub, sprinkle some of the good stuff (yes, baking soda) on the bottom of the empty trash can. About 1/4 cup should suffice.

Why does this work? Baking soda absorbs moisture and all those funky smells emanating from the dark depths underneath your garbage bag. Yuck.

Step 3: Spritz Your New Garbage Bag

Now, if you’ve already been doing this step, hats off to you. It’s a nifty trick that can go a long way. All you’re going to do is spritz your garbage bag with air freshener before you put it in the garbage can. Yup, that’s it!

The air freshener combined with the deodorizing power of the baking soda should keep your trash can smelling clean for quite some time. You can also use essential oils to get rid of trash can smell.

Here are some other natural ways to freshen up your home.