Trash receptacles are found in every home and have remained unchanged in design for almost their entire history. They are normally sold in 5 gallon to 50 gallon sizes and often have either removable covers or covers that are hingedly connected to the body of the receptacle.
Lately, changing laws in many localities are radically changing the way people dispose of their trash. These laws reflect environmental concerns over rapidly filling landfills and the incineration of toxic wastes. Most of these laws now require the recycling of certain waste materials to reduce energy costs and especially, to reduce the deleterious effect on the environment these waste materials may cause. Typically, the homeowner is required to separate bottles, cans and newspapers from the rest of the household trash. This has created a storage problem for the average homeowner.
At the present time, the most common method of separating trash relies on the homeowner using a number of separate waste receptacles. This often requires one to carry the different waste products to different parts of the home (kitchen, closet, garage, basement) depending on the type of waste involved.
There are a number of other problems associated with the present methods of recycling. For those who previously had a single area in which a trash receptacle was kept (for example, in a kitchen cabinet beneath the sink), the area cannot be modified to accommodate the plurality of receptacles now required. For the people who use only small quantities of cans, bottles, etc., using a large trash can for each item is economically impractical and requires an excessive amount of storage space.
A primary method of overcoming the above noted problems has been the recent design of multi-compartmented trash receptacles. Receptacles of this kind can be seen in the patents issued to Papaianni (U.S. Pat. No. 4,729,489) and McDonough (U.S. Pat. No. 4,428,493). Both these patents show unitary trash receptacles that have compartments segregated from each other by a fixed divider. These containers, while alleviating some of the problems associated with recycling, suffer from certain other problems.
In both Papaianni and McDonough, the compartments can receive flexible, removable bags. The bags are suspended within the compartments by frictional engagement of the bag's top edge with the top lip of the container. As the bag is filled, the added strain on the top of the bag can lead to its inadvertent disengagement from the container lip and subsequent slippage into the interior of the compartment.
In addition, the fixed dividers do not allow any modification of the volumes of the segregated compartments that might be required for the convenience of the user to reflect individual needs. For instance, for the user who buys 3 liter soft drink containers, the portion of the waste receptacle devoted to the receipt of these containers should be wide enough to accept these extra-large containers. On the other hand, a user who only needs space to receive a few 12 ounce cans would only need a small volume devoted for these small containers.
Two final problems unsolved by the prior art are firstly, the lack of a usable method of partitioning large trash cans (30-50 gallon volume) so that they can be used to hold diverse items in separate compartments. Secondly, there is no teaching in the prior art of a modification to the receptacles that will allow the secure engagement of both plastic flexible bags of the variety now commonly used by supermarkets for the bagging of groceries and also, large trash bags.