Do you need the best diaper pail that won’t make the nursery smell like a barn? We agree! We researched and tested more than 20 of the best diaper pails and selected the five best ones for a final list. Every day, a diaper pail can be a handy way to store dirty diapers for a short time while keeping the smells away. Important pail factors include how well it holds smells and how easy it is to use, so we used each one to show all the smelly features. Each product has its pros and cons, such as how well it controls smells, how hard it is to change bags, and how much it costs to own. There is a good chance that our roundup will contain information that will help you and your family make the best decision.
You will have to spend a lot of time and energy on diaper duty, so get the best supplies to make it easy. Use our list of the best diaper gear to help you get what you need. We’ve also tried and reviewed the best diapers and baby wipes for the job. When you go on trips with your baby, make sure you have the best diaper bag with you.
Our Favorite Diaper Pails
- Best Overall: Ubbi Steel Diaper Pail
- Best Electric: Munchkin UV Diaper Pail
- Best Value: Diaper Genie Complete Diaper Pail
- Best Award-Winning: Munchkin Step Diaper Pail
- Best Affordable: Dekor Classic Hands-Free diaper Pail
1. Best Overall: Ubbi Steel Diaper Pail
The Ubbi Steel diaper pail’s powder-coated steel construction makes it easier to use, and it is quite simple to operate. It has rubber seals installed, which aid with a variety of tasks, such as reducing air dispersion and containing odors. It has rubber seals installed, which aid with a variety of tasks, such as reducing air dispersion and containing It’s very easy to load, use, and meet after cleaning compared to others. Ubbi always helps make the parents’s lives easier. It includes a child lock to prevent injury to small hands. The best part is its award-winning diaper pail, with the feature that you don’t have to buy extra bags, which also saves you money.
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2. Best Electric: Munchkin UV Diaper Pail
Worried about dirty newborn diapers that require frequent changes and increase the risk of infections and viruses? Rest assured, Munchkin UV diaper pail has you covered. Using medical-grade UV light, the device eliminates bacteria and germs that cause odors. Innovative self-sealing technology keeps the disposal bags closed, preventing the scent from escaping. When you open the pail, it will still not make the smell spread. It has 4 gold LED lights that sterilize the internal surface, and it kills more than 99% of bacteria, and viruses like Staph, Klebsiella. The device is compatible with all Munchkin-branded refill rings, like Snap, Seal, and Toss. Now let’s see what the ox comes with; it includes a Munchkin UV Diaper Pail, a USB cable and adapter, a bag, a registration number, etc.
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3. Best Value: Diaper Genie Complete Diaper Pail
The Whole Diaper Genie The special two clamps on the diaper pail work together to keep unpleasant smells out of the nursery. Its carbon filter is responsible for detecting smells. The Diaper bucket opens completely without you having to bend over or perform any additional actions. It takes first place when it comes to the best-selling diaper pail brand. It comes with a refill that can hold up to 270 newborn-size diapers, which means you can use it for a long time without having to refill. The diaper pail comes with one white pail, one clean laundry scent refill, and one carbon filter. If you truly want to get rid of the foul smell that permeates your entire home, this item may work like magic.
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4. Best Award-Winning: Munchkin Step Diaper Pail
The Munchkin Step diaper pail has become the new gold standard. The diaper pail not only eliminates the unpleasant stench but also has a very traditional, classic appearance. Every diaper pail purchase contributes to the planting of a tree. It works with seal-and-toss refill bags, as well as refill rings and snaps. It attempts to conceal the unpleasant smell with a lovely arm that smells like lavender, in addition to sealing it in. The mechanism is self-sealing. The brand achieved a significant milestone in 2020 when it won the best overall diaper pail award. This device comes with a set that includes a ring refill, step pail, snap, seal, and a toss bag filled with lavender-scented baking soda. The brand not only works to improve the house environment, but also the outdoor environment.
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5. Best Affordable: Dekor Classic Hands-Free Diaper Pail
The Diaper Dekor Classic have all the classic features. On top, it has a self-closing whisper lid, which will not disturb the baby. It includes a child lock to prevent any harm to those small hands. The dual rubber seals help to lock in the bad smell. Its ABS plastic is very easy to clean and sanitize. Emptying it is much easier than any other Diaper pail. It’s available in three sizes. The decor is a savior when it’s time for potty training. The device’s unique refill system makes emptying and refilling very quick and easy. Given its amazing features, the device’s price is also quite reasonable. You can also clean it with dry clothes.
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Test and Analysis of the Best Diaper Pails
A good diaper pail should have these traits:
Value
Usually, to figure out which product is the best deal, we look at its price compared to how well it works overall. But when it comes to diaper pails, the price tag doesn’t always tell you everything you need to know. When used over and over, baby pails that need special refill bags can add up to a lot of money. However, these types of pails are usually much better at keeping smells in than regular trash bags.
There are two main types of pails: those that require special liners (bags made specifically for the pail), and those that accept regular trash bags. For some products, both are acceptable. Beyond the bag type, another factor to consider is the presence of an accessory that mitigates odors, which may require periodic replacement. You need to think about more than just the price of the pail itself when you figure out how much it will cost you in the long run. For example, buying new bags and features that combat odors can add up. It would be best to consider which features are most important to you based on how often you change the bag or where you plan to keep the pail.
Well sized
A pail should only require emptying twice a week at most, depending on its level of fullness. We designed the test pails to hold at least 20 size-4 diapers, equivalent to about 45 newborn-size diapers. Besides that, the pail should not take up much space.
Easy to use
It should be easy to set up, and it should be clear how to empty the pail and put it in a new bag. Since you’ll likely have to dump diapers while holding onto a wriggling child, the diaper pail should be easy to open with one hand. As much as possible, you should not have to push a dirty diaper against a wall or a tight hole.
Be reasonably priced
The price of refill bags has a significant impact on how much a diaper pail costs over its entire life. Pails that do not require proprietary refills are not only less expensive to use, but they may also be more convenient because it is simpler to locate normal garbage bags if you run out of them.
How often you empty your pail, how you plan to care for your child, and, of course, how much your child makes will all affect your total cost. Some companies that make diaper pails give you an idea of how much the bag will cost over time and how much it can hold. However, we found that the figures for the bag’s capacity were on the high side.
Attractive design
Aesthetics play a crucial role in diaper pails due to their prominent placement in a nursery. We also sought proof that a candidate’s materials and style would last for years without looking worn out.
Control of Odors
Almost all of the tested pails effectively contained odors when closed. There is either an inner bag seal or a limited opening feature on each lid that keeps it tightly closed. When we left open and closed pails alone for hours, we didn’t notice a significant difference in smell. When you open and close the pails to put dirty diapers inside, which you do a lot when you have a baby, the difference is more noticeable.
Even though there are clever designs to keep smells inside, they can’t completely contain them; when the lid opens, a stink puff will always come out. The level of odor produced when a new deposit is what makes the difference. It ranges from a mild poof to a nasty blast, we found. This is what will happen if you keep your baby’s waste in one container for a long time, even though neither event is pleasant. The stink bomb cloud can stick around for a long time and make it hard to breathe. When you start to compare, the battle heats up. The Munchkin Step was the pail that let the least amount of stink out. We loved this pail, and containers that didn’t have the smell in them were so bad that we’d do almost anything to stay away from them.
A number of the products have an open/close method that is meant to keep the smell inside. You can twist the top of the diaper genie to keep smells inside, and they have a clamp that stops a lot of smells from getting out. The Munchkin step incorporates a similar mechanism for twisting the diaper bag. There are no smell-blocking features on the Ubbi when it opens, so every drop lets out all the smell. This design earned it low scores for this metric. However, the Ubbi stands out as the only product without plastic construction. It may be a trade-off based on how well you can handle smells and how quickly you can make deposits, since the powder-coated steel should keep it from absorbing too much smell over time.
So what else can you do to get rid of those bad diaper smells? These tips are valuable to us:
- Instead of placing wet diapers in the pail for disposal, immediately take them outside or rinse the poop in the toilet.
- If you don’t want your container to smell bad after a few days, empty it every day.
- After each day, spray the pail with a cleaning spray (you can buy one or make your own with vinegar).
- Baking soda naturally eliminates odors and works wonders for diaper pail smells. After each bag change, it’s helpful to sprinkle some or put a whole box at the bottom of the pail.
- It may be helpful to cover up the smell with something else that smells better. You can get rid of the smell with dryer sheets or coffee grounds. Also, essential oils can be helpful. Putting a cotton ball at the bottom of the trash can with 5–10 drops of eucalyptus, lavender, or melaleuca (tea tree) oil on it can also help, and it usually doesn’t smell as bad as scented bag liners.
- Finally, clean your pail frequently with soapy, hot water, and leave it out in the sun to dry. UV rays help kill germs that cause smells.
Easy to Disposal
When we tried to figure out how easy it was to get rid of something, we looked at how easy it was to throw away a dirty diaper with just one hand. On some pails, you can use your foot to open the lid on top. This might seem like a good thing, but they aren’t always easier to use than the hand-operated ones above. Each time we insert a new diaper into our finest pails, the lids release the least amount of odor, and the diaper never becomes stuck during the process.
The Ubbi’s sliding door opens with downward pressure, but using the kid lock makes the whole process take two hands, which might be a challenge when you’re caring for an infant. As the name suggests, the Munchkin Step includes a lid-opening step, but the bag twists after dropping each diaper to catch odors as you go. When the pail is nearly full, this approach could make it more difficult to fit a new diaper inside. When the bag is almost full, the trap door on the Dekor works well. A lot of people who have used it say that the hinges loosen up over time, which lets smells out with every new deposit and leaves the inner door open. Some diaper pails feature trap doors that require manual pushing, potentially exposing your hand to the interior of the bag. If the last diaper leaked, you will also feel it. Oh no! The Dekor Classic has a simple foot pedal that opens the lid, making it easy to put in your cloth diaper, but offers no odor-blockage mechanism. The Munchin UV opens and closes with a foot pedal that opens the lid, making it easy to put in your diaper. It has UV rays that kill germs and prevent odors from getting out.
Bags are easy to change
Changing diaper pail bags is a very unpleasant task. You need to get this job done quickly before the smelly fumes make you throw up. However, you’ll likely need to perform this task multiple times a week for several years, making it crucial to consider the ease of changing a bag without creating a mess or inhaling fumes. The top-performing product in this category is Ubbi because no diaper bags are required. You don’t have to change the bag because it is reusable. All you have to do is dump the diapers out and clean the pail.
Some pails, like the Munchkin Step and Munchkin UV, have a blade built in so you can cut the bag when it’s time for a new one. This design makes it easy to empty the pail as often as you need to while still making good use of the space in your bag. Our favorite feature of the Munchkins is its top-hinged design, which allows you to feed the bag through the blade without closing it. Not every approach is as useful, but we find it pretty easy to change the bag on most pails with their liners. Just take out the plastic and tie a knot in the end. Just like the Munchkin brand, the Genie has the same process of changing the bag, and the hands-free system makes it more easy to use.
You can empty the Dekor classic, which uses regular trash bags, in the same way you would empty any other trash can. You’ll have to change the entire bag, whether it’s full or not, when the pail smells too bad to handle. To replace the Dekor classic bag, all you have to do is secure the edges of a new trash bag or a reusable fabric bag. This is the best way to do it. To ensure that the bag remains in place, the Ubbi has a lid design that consists of numerous layers. Even though it’s not difficult, the number of steps is higher because of this approach, which is why it scored lower for how easy it is to change bags.
How to use, care for, and maintain
To get the most use out of your diaper pail, remember to roll dirty diapers up neatly as a bundle. This helps to limit the smell even more, keeps you from coming into contact with any loose contents, and packs the bag tightly inside the pail. You could even flush any solid waste down the toilet before getting rid of the diapers. This will keep the smells down and give you more time to empty the pail. (Some parents practice this and also demonstrate to their children, ensuring they learn early on that poop belongs in the toilet.)
If your diaper pail is good at keeping smells in, the inside will start to smell after a while. It should be helpful to leave the pail outside, preferably overnight.
If your pail’s walls get dirty in any way, you should clean them right away. You can clean Munchkin’s plastic box with warm water and soap, or you can mix vinegar, baking soda, and lemon juice and use that instead. If you need to clean one of Ubbi’s steel cans, they say to use a dry cloth. If you do use a wet cloth, make sure the pail is completely dry before using it again. The company advises against using rough liquid cleaners like spray bleach or soap because the chemicals could get under the screws and eat away at the metal.
Bottom Line
At first glance, what seems like a very simple nursery purchase can become a bit tricky. That’s why we pointed out the things that make the best diaper pails different from each other. The two most important things to look for in a pail are how it opens and shuts, as well as how much space it takes up. You can see on the label how many baby diapers the pail can hold, but keep in mind that bigger diapers won’t fit. For hands-free use, most of the units on this list have a foot pedal, but some have a pull tab or button instead.
It’s also nice to have a scented stick that fits in the lid and scented bags that work with it. When we talk about bags, most of the things we sell are packaged in plastic. When you can, opt for large refills or use a cloth bag with cloth diapers to reduce the amount of plastic you use. The Ubbi Diaper Pail is our top selection since it is compatible with any regular kitchen garbage bag, has a child safety lock, and comes in a variety of colors and designs. It is also really safe.
