How to Clean your Wheelie Bin With a Pressure Washer

Whilst they may not be glamourous, every household needs a wheelie bin. They allow us to dispose of our rubbish in a hygienic and safe manner, ready for the bin men to collect them every week and keep our streets clean.

However, many people do not realize how important it is to keep your wheel bins clean. Dirty bins can be a breeding ground for dirty bacteria, horrible smells and even pesky vermin, so it’s essential that you give them a good wash once in a while.

One dodgy bin bag and your wheelie bin could be covered with nasty liquids, food waste and other grime, and this can be surprisingly difficult to clean. What’s more, you’re not exactly going to get inside your bin and start scrubbing with a sponge, and this makes them quite difficult and inaccessible to clean. Don’t worry, we’ve got a solution – pressure washers!

These high-pressure cleaning tools are a massive help in removing that stubborn grime, not to mention making it a lot easier to reach those hard-to-reach spots. If you’re unsure where to start with pressure washing your wheelie bins, don’t worry – we’re going to be explaining everything you need to do, so read on to find out more!

Reasons to pressure wash your wheelie bins

Before we get started, let’s summarise the main reasons why you should consider pressure washing your wheelie bins.

Keeping your Property Hygienic any food waste will slowly begin to go off once it has been disposed of. If any of this waste leaks out of the bin bags, it could attract flies and vermin!

This is not only unhygienic but an unpleasant sight for yourself as well as visitors. This is a great reason to pressure wash your wheelie bins – it will prevent any waste build-up and keep things hygienic.

Eliminating Nasty Odours

The rubbish in your bins is always going to be smelly – that’s unavoidable. However, there is nothing worse than the stench of split bin bags that have built up over several weeks.

This can make the process of emptying the bins quite unpleasant, but this is completely avoidable by simply giving your wheelie bins a regular pressure wash.

Helping the Bin Men

Where would we be without the binmen? Our streets would be filthy! They are essential who spend all their workdays dealing with our rubbish, so we think it’s important to make their job easier when possible. Ensure that you spray your wheelie bins regularly, and the bin men will appreciate it when they start loading your sparkling bin!

Keeping the Exterior Clean

Whilst you are most likely going to need to pressure wash the inside of your wheelie bins, the exterior of them does get grimy over time. Whilst your neighbours certainly won’t be judging you on the cleanliness of your bins, it’s certainly nice to keep them looking shiny! It just makes your property appear a little bit more presentable.

A Step by Step Guide to Pressure Washing your Wheelie Bins

Hopefully, you now understand why it is important to clean your wheelie bins – now let’s take a look at how to go about it!

Step 1: Remove any Physical Items

Whilst pressure washers are super powerful, they’re not going to do much about that mouldy apple at the bottom – if anything, it will just break it up and create more mess! Be sure to empty your wheel bin of any solid waste, this is just going to get in the way and make your job harder.

Step 2: Spray The Inside and Apply Detergent

Some grime can be removed from the inner walls of your bins with a simple spray down – get this done right away, and you should be able to access the real damage. Turn your wheel bin on its side and start applying detergent to each wall of the bin – don’t forget the gross bit at the bottom!

Step 3: Brush Down the Stubborn Grime

The grimy insides of your wheelie bins should now have a thorough coating of soapy water. It’s now time to brush all of that away with a wooden brush. The strong bristles should help break down any thick layer of grime that may be present. This can be hard to manoeuvre, so we recommend flipping your bin 90 degrees to access each wall equally.

Step 4: Get the Pressure Washer Out

Now the exciting bit – get out that high-pressure nozzle and start spraying the inside of the bin down with your pressure washer!

Make sure to keep the bin on its side and clean close to a drain, otherwise, your bin could fill up with water and flood the area! There’s no such thing as too much spraying here – don’t worry, you’re not going to damage your tough wheelie bin!

Step 5: Finish the Job

The insider of your wheelie bin should now be sparkling! We would recommend having a final rinse down to ensure that you have got rid of any grime and remaining suds. Finally, if the exterior of the bin is dirty, it’s time to rinse and repeat – literally!

What to Be Aware of

Before we finish up, there’s a couple of top tips you will need to be aware of to ensure pressure washing your wheelie bins goes to plan.

Clean any Sludge or Substantial Grime Before Pressure Washing

Pressure washers are powerful and this can result in the high pressure blasting items up and out of the bin. If you accidentally spray that nasty sludge at the bottom of your bin, it’s not going to be pretty! Make sure you remove any obvious grime from the pressure washer before spraying it with a high PSI nozzle!

Leave the Bins to Dry Before Reusing

Once your wheelie bin is nice and clean, you should pop it upside to drain any water and leave the bin to dry. If you put a fresh bin bag inside a wet wheelie bin, that is just asking for the gross residue at the bottom!

What Setup Should You Use?

Luckily, you won’t need to worry too much about safety and damage when it comes to wheelie bins – they are made of strong plastic and are pretty resilient. Simply choose a variable nozzle attachment or a generally high-pressure nozzle. If you are unsure of what nozzle to use, we have a guide on pressure washing nozzles. Unless your bin is extremely dirty, we doubt that you’ll be needing any of the fancier attachments, but feel free to use your soapy snow nozzle!