4 Ways to Keep Raccoons Away From Your Trash

What’s more frustrating than finding the contents of your garbage bin strewn about in a giant mess? Not much. If you share your corner of the world with raccoons, you may know that our trash cans look like a buffet for them. But you don’t have to make things easy on them—we talked with animal and pest control experts for some tips to keep raccoons away from your trash for good. 

Separate Food Waste

Raccoons are nocturnal omnivores, says Suzanne MacDonald, PhD, a psychology professor who specializes in animal behavior at York University in Canada. “They work and eat from dusk to dawn. They can eat anything and everything, which explains why they find our discarded food so appealing! They love fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, you name it. The more fat and calories, the better, just like humans.” 

They also have an excellent sense of smell, she says, “and can pick up the odors from whatever you’ve discarded so they will make a beeline for your trash bins if you put food in them,” she says. Her tip? “In Canada, we separate organic waste and put that in a locked bin, which keeps the problems to a minimum.  If your trash contains no food, they will quickly learn to leave it alone.”

Lock the Trash Can

Maybe it’s not feasible to keep all food out of your garbage. But as long as “raccoons can’t get in, it doesn’t matter what’s in it,” says Billy Broderick of Critter Control in Louisville, KY. “They can try, but if they can’t get in it, they’ll leave it alone.” 

He recommends securing your cans with a bungee cord. If your can doesn’t have a handle on the front and something on the back to fasten it to, you can install an eye screw as an anchor for the bungee cord. He recommends this over just sitting something heavy on the lid because we’re not trying to make it as hard for ourselves as it is for the raccoons!

Wait to Put Out the Trash

“Our trash is a raccoon’s treasure! Imagine if you were out in the woods, spending eight hours a day looking for whatever food you could find, and suddenly you happened upon a bin full of tasty stuff!” says Dr. MacDonald. “That’s what we have provided for raccoons—an easy, high-calorie source of food. It’s no wonder that raccoons love us.” 

So, here’s one instance where it pays to procrastinate. “Raccoons are very adaptable, but they aren’t evil geniuses, though I hear that all the time,” she says. “They are amazing little carnivores that are just trying to co-exist with us.”

The best way to keep them out of our trash is pretty straightforward, she says. “Don’t put the trash out in bins until trash collection day! Keep your bins inside or locked up.”

Keep It Clean

Even if you wait till the last minute to set out your cans, the smell your dinner leftovers leave behind can linger—and attract these critters. Keep your garbage cans as clean as possible, Broderick urges. His suggestion? The day your garbage gets picked up, douse the inside of the empty can with a cleaning product (he recommends Pine-Sol), then rinse it with a hose.