Of all the things Disneyland fans are passionate about, one of the most unusual — and strangely most popular — is the trash can. 

At the Disney theme parks, trash cans are themed to each individual land. In Fantasyland, they have medieval-looking patterns. In Frontierland, they’re painted to look like rough-hewn wood. In Toontown, they’re emblazoned with the El Capitoon Theater logo from Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway or have anthropomorphic brooms pushing — get this — actual sweeping brooms. 

Park cleanliness has been such a priority at Disneyland that Walt Disney famously said, “When I started on Disneyland, my wife used to say, ‘But why do you want to build an amusement park? They’re so dirty.’ I told her that was just the point — mine wouldn’t be.” 

Making trash cans part of the park decor was so well received that the cans themselves are lionized in Disney mythology. They’ve been memorialized as a series of now-discontinued Christmas tree ornaments, which sell on eBay for $50 or more. This Halloween season, a group of superfans went hugely viral on TikTok at Disneyland’s Oogie Boogie Bash dressed as different Disney trash cans. The park was so impressed, they were also asked to be in the preshow of the Frightfully Fun Parade that night. 

In Walt Disney World, a trash can has even become an under-the-radar character. At Epcot, a trash can in the United Kingdom Pavilion of the World Showcase has been named “Binny” by a fan group called the Disney Day Drinkers (D3), who has designated him their unofficial club mascot.

“I’ve seen how much people truly love Binny,” D3 member Iliana Rosado told Business Insider. “People have decorated him up, brought their kids over to take a picture with him, and if we’re hosting a crawl, the group always gets a picture with Binny.”

Trash cans as they exist in the parks today wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for Walt Disney. In fact, a trash can in your house right now probably wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for his obsession with cleanliness and visual perfection in Disneyland.

In the “Food” episode of “Behind the Attraction,” which premieres Nov. 1 on Disney+, Disney cast members shed light on how Walt changed trash management as we know it. For the company, as he has famously said, “It all started with a mouse.” For this story, it all started with a hot dog. 

Ahead of Disneyland’s 1955 opening and in its early days, Walt often stayed overnight in his apartment over the Main Street Fire Station. Early mornings, before anyone else was there, he would walk the park, inspecting it for any areas that needed improvement. “The story goes that he was in the park when it first opened and he walked along the street and ate the hot dog, and once he got to where he had the wrapper in his hand and no hot dog left, he immediately said that’s where a trash can needs to be,” Disney archivist Rebecca Cline said in the episode. 

He insisted on having a trash can every 30 feet at the parks. But they couldn’t be just any regular trash cans. They had to meet Walt’s exacting level of polish for the park, and fit seamlessly into the environment.

“The last thing Walt wanted people to do was to look into the can and see the trash,” Karlos Siquieros, who works in food and beverage at Disneyland Resort, said in the episode. 

“So, Walt worked with an engineering team to develop the garbage cans that we see at the parks today that have the swinging door,” Marcy Carriker Smothers, author of “Eat Like Walt: The Wonderful World of Disney Food,” said in the episode. “That way, no guest has to see the garbage that’s inside.”

He definitely didn’t invent the covered trash can — that was Eugene Poubelle, who made covered trash containers compulsory in Paris in the 1880s — but Disney popularized the swinging door to the point that it’s now commonplace. And, of course, took enough time making them blend into the park’s aesthetic that they’ve now got real-life fans.