David J. Danto

Travel thoughts in my own, personal opinion

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European Garbage – February 2025

This Week’s Blog Is Garbage. Well, technically, it’s about garbage.

Normally, I focus on topics that matter just a bit more to business and leisure travelers – flight delays, hotel perks, the subtle art of avoiding eye contact with people in the airport, etc. But this week, I’m diving into something more insidious. Something that lurks in the shadows of European hotels, waiting to ruin your morning. Something so useless and so infuriating, that it deserves its own blog post.

Of course, I’m talking about the minuscule, physics-defying, utterly pointless European hotel bathroom garbage can.

The Great Garbage Can Conspiracy

What exactly are the designers of these things thinking? Did someone decide that hotel guests don’t actually produce trash? Or was this a passive-aggressive way of telling us we should be ashamed of our wasteful ways?

These tiny cans are typically outfitted with a flimsy pedal mechanism that seems specifically designed to ensure nothing actually makes it inside. You step on it, and whoosh – it swings around the floor like a wayward soccer ball at a Champions League match, emptying whatever feeble amount of trash you might have managed to get inside onto the pristine tile floor.

Or, if you try to prop the lid open, it either won’t stay put or, worse, it waits until you try to toss something inside before snapping shut and flipping the whole thing over as if it just rage-quit life.

And let’s talk about volume. What are these cans supposed to hold? Two tissues and a Q-tip? I generate more garbage just by existing in a bathroom. Forget about traveling with anything even mildly disposable – these things are barely large enough to contain the crushing weight of my disappointment.

The Workaround: DIY Garbage Solutions

After years of battling these infuriating contraptions, I’ve learned the only solution is to bypass them entirely. I’ve resorted to using whatever I have on hand – a paper bag from a local shop, an only slightly tattered Walmart bag I stuffed in my suitcase on the last trip, whatever – anything that won’t actively resist my attempts to throw things away.

If I’m on a European business trip, eating takeout (oh, I’m sorry, take-away) in my room after a long day, the bag my food came in instantly becomes my new, infinitely superior garbage can. And unlike the one provided by the hotel, this one doesn’t try to perform acrobatics when I attempt to use it.

European Hotel Bathrooms: A Study in Unnecessary Struggle

Honestly, we shouldn’t be surprised. The European hotel bathroom experience is already a masterclass in unnecessarily difficult design. These are the same places that refuse to embrace high-tech, ultra-modern conveniences like shower curtains – because why wouldn’t we want to flood the entire bathroom every time we wash our hair? It’s like these hotels took one look at 20th-century advancements and said, “Nah, we’re good.”

But in reality, this issue is even older. Trash cans – functional, usable, human-sized trash cans – are not a recent invention. They’ve existed in usable form since at least sliced bread. We’re not asking for AI-powered smart bins that sort our waste and provide an existential crisis about our carbon footprint. Just a normal-sized, stationary, working bathroom garbage can.

Until European hotels decide to join us in the modern era of functional trash disposal, I’ll continue my guerrilla tactics of makeshift garbage solutions. If you’re traveling and find yourself facing down one of these tiny metal nightmares, do yourself a favor – ignore it. Use a paper bag. Use anything else. Because this, my fellow travelers, is one battle not worth fighting.

And if some manufacturer of these things somewhere is reading this: please, for the love of everything holy, stop making these nonsensical devices.

This article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal opinions.

All image and links provided above as reference under prevailing fair use statutes.

Copyright 2025 David Danto

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