Trash Management Is The Biggest And Simplest Problem With Cars And It’s Time We Figure It Out

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There is a whole rich, well-stocked, delicious buffet of problems to solve in the automotive industry. There’s problems related to making cars safer, both for the people inside and outside, there’s the issues relating to sustainability and emissions and general environmental responsibility, we have EV problems with charging networks and batteries and cost and weight and replicability and all cars are still too damn expensive, and and dear god, so so so many more problems. Problems everywhere, and they’re all insurmountable-seeming nightmares. But I have an idea! Screw all that, let’s focus on a much simpler, much easier, but still remarkably ubiquitous and pervasive problem in the automotive world: trash.

Specifically, inside-car trash. Cars are really quite small, complex spaces, full of carpet and crannies and nooks and keeping that interior clean is, honestly, challenging. No matter how neat or careful you may be, at some point you have to deal with some unwanted matter in your car, matter we commonly think of as “trash” or “garbage” or “my chapbook of personal poetry.”

There’s nowhere good to stick little bits of accumulated trash in cars. Often, wrappers and receipts and other unwanted stuff ends up clogging door pockets, which keeps it sort of out of sight, but is still gross, and once you do see, is even grosser. The passenger footwell is another common dump site, and while it’s easy to chuck trash in there, it looks terrible and makes you depressed every time you get in your car and see all those Big Beef and Cheddar wrappers. It feels like a gut-punch.

Sure, there’s aftermarket solutions, but they, almost exclusively, suck. They’re little bags that hang from seats or tiny cans that fit into cupholders and need emptying every 42 minutes or sloppy, bulky canisters – none of these really do the job. Plus, when you empty any of these, you’re having to awkwardly wrestle out a likely overfilled bag of trash through the inside of your car, and this can often end in droppage or worse. I know. I’ve been there.

What I propose is an in-car trash management system that satisfies at least three fundamental criteria:

  1. It must not be space-intrusive in the already full-of-stuff cabin
  2. It must be easy to access and use, at least as easy as shoving a wrapper in a door pocket or center console
  3. It must be able to be emptied out from the outside of the car.

Years ago, I toyed with an idea, but David saw my drawing and made fun of me, mostly because my example car was a rear-engined van:

Van Trashbin

And, okay, maybe he’s right, maybe that doesn’t reflect what most cars on the road today are like, and maybe it’s making things too easy. But I think there’s some basically decent ideas there. Still, I have one other idea, and then a way to revisit that one.

My new idea is actually something potentially easy to make and implement into a wide variety of cars today. It’s a trash management system that would exist under a car’s front seats (or just the passenger seat, if you want to cheap out):

Easy Solution

 

So, basically, the seat frame would be designed so that the unused under-seat area would have a little drawer. Maybe ECUs and some other hardware would need to be re-located, and, yes, I realize some rear footroom may take a hit, but in most SUVs and crossovers this really wouldn’t be much of an issue. The drawer would be resting on a few spherical rollers to help facilitate sliding both forward, backward, and sideways, out the side of the seat and out the open car door, for emptying.

It would work very simply. If you have trash, you’d slide out the drawer (forwards, between your legs if you’re up front, backward, towards your legs if you’re in the rear) and you’d chuck your trash in there. Repeat until the bin is full, then slide it sideways and dump it out in the trash or on the lawn of a frenemy! The drawer would be simple, hard-wearing plastic, so you could easily wash it out with a hose or in your sink if it got too gross, like if someone in the back seat pukes in it.

Sure, a bit of engineering is needed to find a way to make the drawer lock in place and still be easy to pull back, forth, and out, and when it comes out the side of the car, it needs to clear the lower door sill, but there’s so many brilliant automotive engineers out there that I feel like these details can be easily sorted.

In the guise of storage bins, these sort of under-seat drawers have appeared on a number of cars; here’s an Audi one, for example:

We’d just need to adapt this sort of design a bit to allow for front and rear sliding, and removal sideways, out the door. Again, this is a solvable problem!

Trash could get shoved in here, out of sight, it’d be easy to empty, and everyone wins! Why isn’t this kind of thing in cars already? Don’t tell me because there’s no need: I’ve seen people’s cars. They’re full of trash!

Okay, so that’s the relatively easy solution, one that wouldn’t require any major changes to a car’s body or structure. This next one might:

Hard Solution

I still like the idea of an in-floor trash solution. Something where there’s a volume of space under the floor of one (or more!) of the footwells, and trash can be flung into a receptacle under the floormat, or via some manner of lid in the floormat. The cassette-like trash receptacle could then be slid out from the lower sill of the car, and its filthy contents dumped into a suitable trash-thing, like a dumpster or sarlacc.

What I like about this is that you could, say, lift a floor mat and just brush or scrape or rake all the crap on your car’s floor into the crap-hole, and then it’s all gone! You slide out that cassette, dump it, and your life is pure again.

Of course, in EVs, that space is usually taken up by batteries, so unless you want to sacrifice a roughly one foot-by-one-and-a-half-foot section of battery pack, maybe this setup won’t work so well. But, otherwise, it could be so sleek and well-integrated! If each footwell had its own trash cassette, keeping your car clean would be trivially easy.

The point is, we need to do something. Here it is, the year of many peoples’ lord 2024, and our super-sleek, advanced cars are still full of trash. We need some good, integrated, simple solutions. I’m not saying what I’ve described here are going to be the end results, but I am saying that it’s a place to start.

Really, we just need a place for the trash. A dedicated place that is not also a storage compartment. It needs to be easily accessible, and easy to empty. But just having a specified location for trash to go is half the battle.

We need to be freed from the tyranny of crushed cans and wadded receipts and banana peels. We deserve better. It’s time.

 

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Mercedes Streeter

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115 thoughts on “Trash Management Is The Biggest And Simplest Problem With Cars And It’s Time We Figure It Out”

    1. One multi personal drive thru meal more than overflows all the door pockets in one car.

      What are you doing in your car that has never involved an excess of trash? I mean seriously, have you never once taken the boys through the Taco Bell drive thru?

      1. Taco bell: Always eat inside because children don’t develop the skills needed for taco neck until late teen years and cheese gets EVERWHERE. I can barely get them to eat over their plate at the dinner table.. For burgers eaten in the car we just put the trash in the paper takeout bag which sits on the passenger floor (between wife’s feet) or in middle seat floor (only 2 kids) and throw it away the first stop we make. The smell is a great motivator to clear that shit out ASAP. We just road tripped from Chicago to Florida, last summer Chicago to CA and trash isn’t an issue.

        1. So you’re saying, like Jason did, that trash ends up in the passenger footwell or backseat, and that it would be nice to put it somewhere more dedicated?

          1. Its a 30 min problem that effects me 3-5x a year (road trips) and doesn’t need a receptacle. Sounds much more emergent of a situation for others, which is the confusing part. Even for in town meal emergencies, a trash can is only minutes away. The idea of trying to find a way to store said trash in a less temporary way grosses me out. I think perhaps this is a bigger problem for daily fast food eaters (no judgement intended).

    2. Agree; though that was what door pocket are for.. Satisfies all of the fundamental criteria:

      1. ” It must not be space-intrusive in the already full-of-stuff cabin
      2. It must be easy to access and use, at least as easy as shoving a wrapper in a door pocket or center console
      3. It must be able to be emptied out from the outside of the car.”

  3. I have a dollar store trash can I kept in the passenger side back seat floor of my car. I attached it to the back of the passenger seat when I got an SUV and folded the back seats down.
    I understand this only adheres to only one of your rules, but the car had an “it’s technically there, but you wouldn’t be cruel enough to park someone back there” back seats, and you emptied it through the passenger rear door, but your first idea is emptied through the passenger front door, so there.
    As for your second idea, I must alert your readers that although it seems like a perfect solution, cutting a flap in the passenger side floor with a blowtorch to dispose of trash directly on the road is a bad idea. I understand it’s crazy easy to use, and you’d never have to empty it, but don’t do it. This is litter we’re talking about, not a GM fuel pump.

  5. I guess we don’t generate enough trash in our cars. The crossover has a Hotor thing that sits behind the console and hold several days of road trip trash. The truck has a little bag, and a pickup bed.

  6. My work truck is a disaster in regards to trash.. hours on the road and eating breakfast/lunch driving between jobs means a lot of cans and crumpled wrappers get thrown in the passenger footwell. I usually end up getting to the branch and dumping everything in the dumpster outside. Luckily it has rubber floors so any messes are easy to clean, I’d probably be more picky about it if I had carpet.

    My Mustang and the old truck stay pretty clean but my wife’s car has taken a severe messiness hit since we had kids. Well, everything has with them.

  7. Next problem to solve: make a better spot to store a purse! Using the passenger seat doesn’t work when you have a passenger. Putting it on the floor mat is icky. Sometimes you need access to it.

    1. I’ve always liked what you’d sometimes see before big vehicle design decreed it was mandatory for the dash to connect with a center console b/c sportscar – an open storage bin area in the center below the dash, near the floor. Sometimes with a small net even.

      Useful for corralling things you might need access to on the road (vs. a glovebox).

    2. In our Odyssey you can remove the center console, and have this huge glorious space to put a bag. It rules! Also a bench seat truck with a column shifter has acres of space on the seat and floor for stuff. Also rules!

    3. The “curry hook” is a partial solution for modestly sized bags. I carry a small bag a lot and fin it neatly fits behind the seat of my truck. My wife likes the transmission hump of my truck since it’s open space

  8. Reading this, I became hyperaware that I don’t have kids. Even when I drove cross country, I had a small cardboard box in the rear passenger footwell for trash that I didn’t empty until I reached the opposite coast and it still wasn’t stuffed. Outside of long trips, I don’t eat in the car, so there’s not much to accumulate and cupholders hold any empty juice bottle or whatever. Anyway, if you can’t find a perfect sized box, you can make one with some packing tape and ubiquitous waste cardboard. Cheaper than leaving it to an OEM.

    1. I’m with you. I don’t eat or drink in mine, and am very discouraging of passengers doing so either.

      I keep a plastic grocery bag in the trunks of my cars for trash, problem solved. Most of time, it fills with paper towels used to clean off windows or check fluids.

      1. Somehow, I don’t recall ever having to tell people not to eat in my cars—even the clunkers—I guess I only have considerate people in my cars. Except for the couple times I had to pick up my little nieces as those monsters leave trash in their wake like trails from a slug.

  14. It’s an expensive option, but I installed an ejection seat for those rare times I need to remove white trash from my car. What? Food wrappers, drink cups and such? I see. No, no, that’s not the same thing at all. Can’t just be flinging that stuff out of the roof like the other. Never mind.

  15. I believe my mom’s ’78 Seville had a factory built-in trash bin on the passenger side kick panel, that was removable for emptying and cleaning. I have no idea why this didn’t catch on.

    Mainly, a lot of people are slobs when it comes to their car. My wife is. When I change her oil, while I’m waiting for the oil to drain, I empty all the shit out. Dammit, woman. She’s lucky she’s cute.

    I’ll also add, what cars have needed for decades is a tissue dispenser that will fit the standardized Kleenex travel tissue pack size, so we all don’t have a glovebox full of extra Taco Bell napkins. Sometimes you gotta wipe stuff. This isn’t rocket surgery.

      1. Satch Carlson wrote about this in the eighties. He lived in a state (Oregon I believe) that required a litter bag. They used to make bags that hung from your manual window cranks. An officer pointed out all the trash in his SAAB 96 and Satch pointed out the the state of his car proved he was no litterer, just a slob. Then he remembered he had the SAAB wastebaskets and was indeed in compliance it was just that he never emptied them.

      2. The trash bins were one of the many great things about this great little car. In my youth I emptied my bank account to buy a new, 73 96. After removing the wedges on the seat rails, it was a perfect fit for my 6 ft 2 frame. As one of the few FWD cars available at that time, it was great fun to zip around American behemoths struggling up a snowy hill. It could cruise at 75 MPH all day but poor acceleration made it unsafe in dense high speed commuter traffic – traded it in for a slightly less anemic saab 99. Saabs ever since till they made them no more.

  16. Dude, Really, this is a Big Problem in your world? Of course it helps that I don’t have kids, but this has never been an issue, and I don’t make Native Americans cry. In the Rare instance that any trash is generated, it is disposed of at the next stop.

      1. In the once or twice a year that I’ve eaten take-out in the car, it goes back into the bag it came in, and deposed at the next gas station. Don’t want that funky stuff stinking up the ride.

  17. The key here is, there should not be accumulated trash. Take it with you every time you leave the car for the day. Don’t get up from the table and leave dishes and uneaten food behind. Wash your hands. Practice good hygiene. Have some self respect.

    2. When you have babies or very young kids, every time you exit the car you are already carrying approximately 17 bags in each hand. Which hand does one hold the trash in?

    3. I have an extremely runny nose and blow my nose frequently. Those accumulate in my car trashcan without issue–no smell or anything.
      Not all garbage is disgusting.

  18. Cars do not need to be designed or enhanced to fix a personality/people problem.

    Wife’s cars are full of trash, my cars look close to how they rolled off the showroom. No degree of trash management can solve her & kids being messy people.

    Clean & organized people have no issues, my cars do not need any trash management solutions.

    Unfortunately for most people cars already have their ideal solution, roll down the window and throw it out.

    2. Yeah, maybe I’m old, but those PSAs against littering from when I was a kid worked on me and appeared to do a half-decent job convincing most* other people, but the last few years, littering seems to have returned with a vengeance.

      *Not the dirtbags who share the rivers I kayak on or far too many dog owners who seem to think some magic gnome plucks away the dog shit they inexplicably leave in bags along trails as if it’s better to leave it in plastic than if they had just left it (I know, the filthy bastards will lie and tell you they’re picking it up “on their way back” when confronted, but all evidence and my experience with entitled humans is to the contrary).

  19. We just need a solution like they used to have in train restrooms in Europe back in the day, when the toilets emptied directly onto the tracks…but only while the train was moving!!

  20. A lot of cars have that rather useless upper glove box, so what if instead they had open in the back and it vacuum sucked the trash down to a receptacle that you could empty.

  21. Weathertech’s and just throw it in the front passenger footwell.

    You’ll see it there and remember to take the trash with you, at least once it builds up enough haha.

  22. I’m old (olde?) enough to remember when everybody had what we called “litter bags” in their cars. They were designed to be hung on a knob like the one that opened the kick well floor vents in the front seat area. They had sufficient volume for used tissues, candy wrappers, and the like. They weren’t large enough to for empty beer or whiskey bottles. Everybody from car salespeople to insurance agents to banks and auto clubs gave them away free, with some advertising printed across them of course. They probably were part of Lady Bird Johnson’s effort to Beautify America and reduce roadside litter. Of course cars don’t have knobs on the dashboards anymore and there’s no way to attach one to a touch-sensative button on an LCD screen.

    1. I remember those bags. My folks had them hanging off the radio knobs in their 83 Caprice Classic. I got really good at shooting booger-laden Kleenex into the bag from the back seat. The benefits of seasonal allergies.

    2. Washington required litter bags in all cars, boats, and planes from 1971 until 2003 when the law was repealed. I moved here in 1993 and I have to admit I recall seeing about the same number of litter bags in cars before repeal as afterwards, which is to say essentially zero.

      1. I forgot about that, I remember that if a cop pulled you over he could ask to see your trashbag if he felt like the price of the ticket was too low. I got pulled over enough back when I was young and was never asked to show it, though I did have one.

  23. In an EV, a little vacuum tube in the center console that goes to a frunk garbage bin would be awesome. Insert food wrapper, tissue, or dropped-on-floor chips, press button, thhhp, gone. Empty at the end of a road trip.

    1. In an ICE, a little vacuum tube in the center console that goes to the catalytic converter. Insert food wrapper, tissue, or dropped-on-floor chips, press button, thhhp, incinerated. Empty at the end of a road trip.

      1. A while ago, Mercedes wrote about an RV that had an on-board incinerator to take care of the toilet contents. That idea could be updated for general trash, though some stuff (like plastic) makes [ob]noxious fumes when burned.

  24. Time to remember the in car vacuum that Honda first included in the Odyssey. That was a move that I still appreciate and many do since most other automakers included them in their vans.

    1. But they can’t seem to stop carpeting the floors.

      Vinyl flooring was and is great if you can foresee the floors getting soiled. Like if there are children present. Of if you live in a winter climate.

      2. The main reason car floors are carpeted is for noise abatement. Vinyl floors can be almost as quiet as carpet if they have a slightly disgustingly mushy amount of padding underneath, but it’ll still never be quite as quiet.

  25. Volvo XC40 has a clever and easily-removed trash bin between the front seats. It’s brilliant and practical. All cars should have something similar.

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