Not sure I entirely understand your situation but here is what we do. First Portland has changed it garbage/recycling/debris composting pickup and schedule. We have weekly pickup for debris-compost and for recycling. Debris and compost can includes all food, all garden debris, and some food related paper(like paper towels). Recycling is split into glass and paper/metal. Trash, which is everything else, including animal waste and diapers is picked up every other week. The plan has been in place for about a year. It's worked better than I thought it would.

Here is what we do: We have recycling containers for glass and paper/metal under our sink. We have trash at the end of our counter (on the floor) where there is a little space before the basement door. So it is pretty hidden. The city also provided a small plastic oval bucket for compost. That lives next to the trash can (on the floor) but while we are cooking, we put it on the counter for easy access. We have a separate metal bucket with a lid for the cat box clean up.

John calls that space with the compost and trash the kitchen's a-hole.

Sorry I'm not explaining myself well today. Didn't sleep much last night, too much on my mind.

No compost, we have a GD. No need to sort recycling, it all goes in together.

I only have a 30 inch sink base that will have a GD and instant hot water unit in it. I don't think there will be that much room to put much else.

I think the recycling needs to be out of the work zone. As I noticed that much of the recycling doesn't come from the main work area.

I found this and others like it searching on line. Anyone use this?

Here is a link that might be useful: garbage/recycling

We have recycling bins in our garage. Our garage door is maybe 18 feet from our kitchen. We normally place things which go in the recycling on the counter next to our stove (papers, cans etc). My husband and I ferry these items to the garage often...anytime we're walking that way (for laundry, to get other pantry items in our garage where we keep bulk items like canned goods from costco).

We also do not have an in cabinet garbage can. We have a SimpleHuman a stainless steel can on the end of our peninsula.

I have two recycling bins, the plastic ones provided by the county, in the garage, right next to the door that goes into the kitchen. The kitchen is so small that it takes only a few steps to throw out recyclables. In the kitchen I have a compost keeper under the sink - when it's full, it goes out to the composter - and a trash pull-out.

I think that touchless recycle bin looks great! Do you have room for it?

I am pondering the same thing, so I hope people chime in. My sink (most likely) will be the 24 inch domsjo. I noticed hlove has a stainless steel freestanding. Of couse the idea is to make everything as neat and compact as possible, but those two designated receptacles used, for example, in a rev-a-shelf arrangement under the sink are so big and space consuming if trying to plan things out in a small space.
lucia

We create way more recyclables than trash and since it's "clean" I feel comfortable with different receptacle locations than I would with trash :) One of the baskets in my mudroom/hallway bench holds recyclables (the other baskets hold shoes) because it is centrally located. We don't generate "wet" stuff in that part of the house so it's mainly paper. I have a big square basket in my dining room shelving that is adjacent to my entry and it holds some kitchen recycling and junk-mail etc. I also have recycling baskets in both offices.

I am excited to have a kitchen recycling bin in my new kitchen, though!

One of the issues with built-in trash is that the local rules keep changing, and not always coherently. Lots of old ladies in my town are now struggling to push out gargantuan, industrial-sized bins big enough to hold body parts down their driveways without scratching their '89 Hondas. So flexibility is a good thing to keep in mind.

I keep my recycling in the walk-in pantry /laundry room, which is located at the back of my kitchen. It's not inconvenient at all to walk those five extra steps to throw away recycling.

What I'd really like to have: I've seen pictures on the internet of holes (with covers -- think doggie door) in the backsplash that lead directly out to the garage so that you can throw your garbage / recycling straight into the large, rolling can. However, we won't have that in our new house for two reasons: 1) the holes are unattractive, and 2) we'll have the walk-through pantry dividing the kitchen from the garage.

Our community has had an extended recycling program for a really long time. We don't have curbside garbage/recycling pick up so we need to be able to store stuff until we can make a trip to the transfer station during the limited hours it is open.

Dh built a small bench with a lift-up top into our mudroom. It contains a chute to a large container in the basement. All plastics and metal, including returnable cans, are deposited into it. Dh and ds sort out the items in the large container in the basement before dh takes a run to the transfer station or bottle/can redemption center. We keep a small trash can next to the chute in the mudroom where we place glass items. This small trash can gets scooped up from time to time when we go to the basement and the glass items are dumped into the container with other recyclables.

We store newspapers and other large papers on a shelf in a cabinet in our mudroom.

We do have a double trash pull out in the kitchen. Non recyclables go in one can and paper goes in the other. The paper gets brought down to the basement when it gets full. The garbage gets dumped into an outside can. The can is brought to the dump/transfer station when it gets full.

I haven't felt overrun by recyclables since we put in the chute. We are fortunate to have a walkout basement and we can park right outside the door to load up the car. I've also heard of chutes that run from kitchen or mudroom to garage.

I forgot to mention that we have a small sink in our kitchen right near the mudroom door. Food containers get rinsed before they go down the chute (sometimes the containers just get thrown into the sink until we want to deal with them.)

How does that garbage chute to the garage work? I don't think that would pass code here, you'd potentially get car fumes back into the house that way? Or flame, or whatever it is that means the garage has barriers from the rest of the house. 'Cause it sure sounds nice to me--even if just recycle, it'd be great!

We have so much recycling I planned for two bins. One is in the pantry right next to the shredder and under our office area. This is to try to keep the paper that enters our home from taking over.
The other is built into the cabinets next to the prep/cook area. I find location is key, otherwise my counter tops become littered with stuff waiting to be taken to a bin.
I have a trash compactor for garbage. It's an expensive garbage can but it is secure which keeps my dog from getting in the trash.
Determine where most of your garbage/recycle is coming from and find a spot near there. Having several smaller bins is not a bad idea and may be easier to find places to put them.

Now we too have more recycling than garbage. Might need to have two recycling containers. I will look at the simplehuman cans. Garage is detached and the mudroom/foyer small so no help there.

A small recycling basket for the junk mail might be a good idea..

I do agree that this is becoming more of an issue as more areas recycle and the rules keep changing. We now have two of those HUGE totes in front of our garage. They will move into the garage now that the cabinets are out of there. Our town is now dealing with the issue of the unsightlyness (sp?) of these huge totes. There is a regulation that your garbage and recycling not be seen. They have not been inforcing it since coming out with these monster sizes. They are hard for some people to manuver and don't fit in some peoples previous spots.

Thanks to all who posted. If anyone has other ideas please post!

Our recycling is in the garage and our garbage can is in the pantry.

We now have two of those HUGE totes in front of our garage

So do we. The black one is trash. The other one is for recycling and it's marked "red." Except it's green. Don't ask.

Far as I can tell, the entire purpose of this expensive town-wide move to "toters" is so that one of the two garbage guys (there are still two, not one as promised) can sit on his @@@ and play with his crane rather than getting out of the truck to pick up the trash cans. It's certainly no easier for us. And I cannot wait to see what happens in February when the toters are sitting four feet off the ground on a snowbank. You're also limited to the toters--no extra pickup. On days where we do a major cleanup, I plan to unload all the overflow garbage on the front lawn of the nearby high school.

All of which is to say, I was about to design mudroom cabs to accommodate the smaller red (see where that came from?) recycling bin that we used up until a month ago. Glad I didn't. So just make whatever you use flexible for retrofit.

We put our garbage under the sinks. The compost goes in a lidded container on the counter and gets emptied to the compost heap daily. The other recycling bins and boxes are in the garage near the entrance to the house for easy access.

Funny story about the color....I wanted something cheerful since it was the garage so why not. DH is color blind but very conservative. When I showed him the color and asked what color it was, he said it looks gray. Perfect! I have my color, he sees it as conservative...we're both happy!

(I did tell him it really was a teal...but I'm not sure he knows what that is!)

AnnieD. Love that pop of turquoise. Funny, if hubby sees it as gray you gotta wonder what gray looks like to him!

Debrak. No recycling in my kitchen either. Sink situation similar to yours. 33" base, double sink with GD in deep side and water filter under other with a little room for some cleaning supplies, paper towels and a few dish towels.

Have a small lidded stainless trash can that opens with a foot pedal in a corner. Hope to have it in a cabinet next time around, but current design didn't allow for that without giving up a crucial cab.

Recycling bin is in our attached garage. Supplied by the city, just like plastic lidded one they give us for trash, but different color. Everything recyclable except garden waste goes in there. We have a choice of 2 sizes, smallest about the size of a regular trash can and they have wheels.
It's about 35' from my kitchen down a small hall thru the laundry room and just outside the door so no problem walking out stuff as used. About half of our recyclables come from the kitchen, but I don't miss having it there. There wouldn't be enough room to hold it all and I'd want that stuff out of the house ever night anyway so no need to have an additional container in the kitchen.

Like you guys, we have more recycleables than trash which only amounts to about a bag a week. Trash pick up is every week, recyclables one week, greenery the other. If I had my way it would be recyclable pick up every week, trash every other!