Camco 42983 Collapsible Recycling Bin | 3 Compartments

Anybody who's spent a long weekend at a campsite or a full day out on the water knows how fast the empties pile up. Cans, water bottles, the newspaper you meant to read. Before long there's a trash bag slumped in the corner of the cockpit and nothing's sorted. The Camco 42983 fixes that. It's a collapsible recycling bin with three labeled compartments, so bottles, cans, and paper each get their own spot the moment they hit the bin.

The three-compartment layout is the whole point here. Each section is labeled Bottles, Cans, and Paper right on the front, so you're not squinting or guessing, and neither is anyone else in your crew. Kids get it. Guests get it. That means when you roll into the campground recycling station or back home to the curb, everything's already separated and you just empty each section where it goes. No last-minute sorting on the tailgate.

What makes this one easy to live with is how it packs down. Set up, it stands 24 inches tall with an 18-inch round footprint, big enough to hold a real weekend's worth of recyclables. But when you're done, it collapses to just 2.5 inches high. That's flat enough to slide behind a seat, into a storage bay under the RV, or into the lazarette on the boat. It comes with its own storage bag too, so it stays clean and contained between trips instead of flopping around loose in a locker.

The zippered lid earns its keep more than you'd think. Out at a campsite, an open bin is an invitation for wind to redistribute your paper across three sites and for critters to go shopping overnight. Zip the lid shut and that's done. On a breezy day the included stake anchors the bin to the ground so a gust doesn't tip the whole thing over. Padded handles on the sides make it easy to carry to the dumpster even when it's full, and they're comfortable enough that you're not white-knuckling a thin plastic edge.

It's built from green vinyl with a durable liner, so a spilled soda or a wet bottle wipes right out. That matters more than it sounds. Cardboard boxes and cheap bins turn to mush the first time something leaks. This one you rinse and keep using. The green color and clear labels also make it obvious to everyone that this is the recycling, not the trash, which cuts down on cross-contamination when you've got a crowd.

Where does it fit? Pretty much anywhere you generate recyclables away from a permanent bin. RV owners set it up at the campsite for the weekend and fold it away for travel. Boaters keep one in the cockpit or on the swim platform to keep cans off the deck. It's just as at home in a garage, at a tailgate, on a back patio, or in a dorm room. Anywhere space is tight and you still want to sort your recycling, this thing works and then disappears when you don't need it.

A couple of honest notes. This is a soft-sided vinyl bin, not a rigid rolling cart, so it's built for portability and storage rather than heavy curbside abuse week after week. Treat it like the packable, take-anywhere sorter it is and it'll last you years of camping seasons. If you need a single big trash can rather than a three-way sorter, this isn't that, its strength is keeping bottles, cans, and paper separated from the start.

For the money, it's a smart piece of gear to keep in the RV bay or the boat locker. It sets up in seconds, keeps your recycling sorted and contained, and folds down to nothing when the weekend's over. Simple, and it does exactly what it says.