The vast majority of homeowners will have a bin in the kitchen. You'll probably have more than one, with a few of them dedicated to recycling. Either way, there will be at least one bin where all of your waste goes if it can't be recycled. In all honesty, nobody likes having bins in the kitchen. For one, they take up so much space and clutter up the kitchen area - especially if you don't have a big kitchen! However, the main reason you probably hate your kitchen bin is that it has a tendency to smell awful. Bin collections can only happen once every two weeks - sometimes once a week if you're lucky - meaning you often have to deal with a smelly kitchen bin for days on end. It makes the entire kitchen smell, and if you forget to close the door, the whole house soon follows!

For years, you've dealt with this problem under the mindset that it's something that happens and you can't do anything about it. The very nature of a bin is to collect waste, so it's bound to smell. If you're lucky, it won't start smelling until the last day or so before you can throw it out, so it isn't a huge issue. In reality, you actually can deal with this problem. That's right, you don't have to just accept that your bin smells - you can do things to stop this from happening. It may seem like magic, but it's actually very simple...

Put baking soda in your bin

Let's assume that all of you put a bin bag inside of a bin in your kitchen. If you just have a loose bin bag on the floor, you're already asking for trouble! Put the bag in an actual bin, but ensure you line the bin with baking soda. You could sprinkle some in the bag as well, and this acts as an odor neutralizer. To avoid a lengthy scientific explanation, the easy way of describing it is that the baking soda soaks up the bad smells. In essence, it should help you avoid some of the classic smelly bin odors you've been living with for years.

Avoid putting food waste in your bins

99.9% of the time, the smell from your bins stems from some type of food waste. Naturally, not putting food in your bin should deal with this problem, right? Well, you're absolutely correct, and it's one of the easiest ways of banishing the bad bin smell for good. If you have leftovers or gone-off food, don't throw them in the bin. You can get a proper food waste bin to collect everything in, which you can then keep outside. This helps you recycle the waste as it ends up being turned into compost at a recycling center. Of course, you could also do this yourself with your food waste, which is a great idea if you want to cultivate your back garden.

Another option is to put food down a garbage disposal. This is a little machine that can be attached to your kitchen sink, basically acting like a blender to chop up food remains. Your local plumber can install this for you, and it's a great way of making food waste small enough to then travel down the drain and into the sewage system without blocking the pipes. So, your pipes are clean, food is thrown away, and you don't have anything stinking up your bins!

Rinse off food packaging

You're reading the previous point and thinking: I never throw food in the kitchen bin, yet mine still stinks! Ah, but have you been throwing away food packaging? A lot of the time, the smell from your bins might not be an actual piece of food, but the remains of food on some packaging. This happens all the time if you ever buy fish - even when you use the fish, the oils and the fish smell are left on the packaging. So, when you throw it in the bin - or even your recycling - you end up with a disgusting smell.

Therefore, you can counter this by rinsing off food packaging before throwing it away. In some cases, you will need to use soap as well, just to get rid of the smell. Yes, it's a lot of extra effort, but you don't have to do it for everything. Just rinse off food packaging for smelly things - like fish, meat, sauces, etc. You'll be glad you did it when your bin no longer stinks!

The benefit of these tips isn't just that they will stop your kitchen from smelling really bad. When you put your bins outside, the lack of smell will also keep any pests away. So, you won't have to deal with torn bags because the local cats got to them.