Believe it or not, I love my trash can. It’s sleek, it’s easy to wipe down, it has two compartments (one for trash, one for recycling), and its soft-close lid doesn’t bang shut. It’s made by Simplehuman, the same company that makes our top pick in our guide to kitchen trash cans, as well as some of our favorite toilet brushes, dish racks, and shower caddies.
The only caveat about my trash can is that the Simplehuman model I chose is an irregularly large 58 liters, part of which is for trash, and the other for recycling. Its two compartments are in turn just irregular enough that standard garbage bags have a tendency to slip down into the bin or require jury-rigging (through my tightening and tying the drawstring) for a better fit.
Although the can did come with a trial pack of custom liners, I scoffed at the notion of a specially designed garbage bag. So when the trial pack ran out, I switched to regular ol’ Glad ForceFlex bags. Standing on principle and the assumption that the custom liners were too pricey, I suffered through the minor struggle of using a standard tall kitchen bag (which usually holds up to 49 liters of trash) in my not-so-standard can for quite a while.
My fiancé, on the other hand, was perpetually vexed by the ill-fitting garbage bags. He not only makes more frequent contact with the trash (he’s usually the one who galumphs down the hallway to toss it into our apartment building’s trash chute) but also lives with a trash masher (I do that annoying thing where I press the garbage down instead of simply taking it out), so he was more than justified in his irritation.
So after a year or so of grappling with those less-than bags, he ordered a box of 100 made-to-measure Simplehuman liners. And a year later, we’ve never looked back. If you also own a Simplehuman trash can and have been fighting to get generic garbage bags to stay put, this might be your sign to consider making the switch, too.
These ultra-durable trash liners are made-to-measure for Simplehuman cans, so they stay put no matter how much garbage you squish into them.
You wouldn’t think that trash bags would change my life, but honestly, they have. We interact with the trash can countless times a day, and having a trash bag that does its job—stays put, doesn’t rip, keeps the inside of the can clean, and easily slides out for disposal—is a highly underrated convenience.
The tailored liners fit without slipping unlike any other trash bag I’ve used, and they can tolerate an unreasonable amount of mashing (which comes in handy after hosting, when I need to jam as many paper plates into the bag as possible). Whereas the Glad bags needed to be tied in a knot to stay somewhat in place, the Simplehuman liners have never budged, fallen, or twisted around. It wasn’t an issue that I expected would affect me as deeply as it did, but when we made the switch, I was free to live out my best trash-squashing life.
Simplehuman’s liners are also surprisingly sturdy. Over the past two years of using them, I’ve punctured a bag only a handful of times, and that was almost entirely due to my impatience and willingness to toss pointed objects like broken plastic hangers and wood dowels into the can. The bags’ toughness greatly reduces the risk of ghastly drips from the bottom when I’m taking the trash out—a bonus that my floors (and my hands) are certainly grateful for.
Although Glad ForceFlex bags are promoted based on their ability to stretch to accommodate tons of trash without breaking, I found them to be much more prone to tearing than the Simplehuman liners. Plus, their flimsy drawstring handles dug into my hands under the weight of an oversize load and often ripped through the tubular casing of the main bag, leaving me handle-less.
Another plus: My can comes with a little holster for trash bags that I can easily grab from when I need a replacement (much like a box of tissues). When I was growing up, my family would toss a few extra bags in the bottom of the can instead of going into the closet for a new bag each time, but of course, those spares sometimes sat in a puddle of unidentifiable goo and had to be discarded before they were even used. Each pack of Simplehuman liners also alerts me when I’m running low, with a little tab on the third-to-last bag indicating that it’s almost time to replace the pack.
A niche but still important-to-me bonus: Even when filled to the brim, these trash bags (our can is size H) fit perfectly down our building’s trash chute, so I never have to worry about shoving it down or sticking my arm anywhere near that sticky, stinky slide from hell. Simplehuman offers a number of liner sizes to fit various containers, from small liners for in-cabinet cans to compostable liners for compost bins. And just in case you forget the size, a sticker inside your garbage can shows the liner code (they really think of everything).
The main drawback, of course, is the price. Aside from my own stubbornness, the cost of entry was one reason I resisted ordering the Simplehuman liners. For a long time, I assumed that they would be prohibitively expensive. But it turns out that the size H kitchen trash-can liners are only about 7¢ more per bag than the Glad ForceFlex tall kitchen bags—far more doable than I presumed.
Some quick math: Let’s say we take the trash out once every two or three days—that means we probably use between 121 and 183 trash bags per year. The size H liners, which hold up to 35 liters each, are about 28¢ each at this writing (if we order the 100-pack, which we usually do), which means we spend, on the high end, approximately $50 on trash bags per year. If we were to apply the same math to Glad ForceFlex bags (ordered on Amazon in a quantity of 110 bags, as we once did), we’d spend about $38 on trash bags per year. So after all that, we’d save only about $10–15 each year by enduring lesser trash bags.
On top of that, the Simplehuman liners are made from 50% post-consumer recycled plastic, according to the company. Currently, only one Glad ForceFlex bag specifies that it is made with any recycled materials: the ForceFlex MaxStrength Tall Trash Bag, which contains “50% recovered plastic,” according to a company representative. One box of 45 of those 50% recycled plastic Glad bags retails for about $13, or roughly 29¢ per bag, comparable to the 50% recycled plastic Simplehuman bags (and depending on the retailer, slightly more expensive).
You need to order the Simplehuman liners online, so for some people, the convenience of stocking up at the grocery store still wins out. The Simplehuman liners are readily available on multiple sites, though, including Amazon (with free Prime shipping), Target, The Container Store, Uline, Home Depot, and Lowe’s. For my fiancé and me, ordering online is a bonus, as we don’t need to think about trash bags on a grocery run, especially since we frequently shop at Trader Joe’s, which doesn’t carry trash bags.
After years of tolerating ill-fitting, prone-to-ripping trash bags, I don’t foresee a future in which we ever switch back to regular bags from our beloved Simplehuman liners. Yes, they’re slightly pricier than run-of-the-mill garbage bags, but it’s a worthwhile little luxury, if you ask me, for something that we interact with and need to work for us on a daily basis.
This article was edited by Katie Okamoto and Megan Beauchamp.
