Five gallon bucket

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The five gallon bucket is a cultural icon and charming bit of Americana, particularly the rural midwest. Its place in American culture is similar to duct tape, Burma-shave signs, and diners converted from railroad cars.

The five gallon bucket is a standardized plastic (polyethylene) container size in the United States. They are approx. fifteen inches tall with a diameter of twelve inches. Two or three reinforcement collars are located near the top. A wire or plastic handle is usually attached to the top three inches. The buckets are able to nest in one another. In Venezuela, the 5 gallon bucket is known as the 18 or 20 liter bucket.

While many products arrive or are supplied by five gallon buckets, seldom are the buckets thrown away in rural areas. They are put into service in common and imaginative ways. They have been called the ultimate recyclable. A five gallon bucket's use for just about anything is an outlet of creativity and resourcefulness. Comically, it has been noted that no farm pick-up has fewer than two five gallon buckets in the back performing various utilitarian needs.

All chain hamburger restaurants get their sliced pickles in food-grade 5-gallon buckets, which cannot be reused for their original purpose. These small businesses usually use trash removal services, so the emptied buckets are thrown into their dumpsters and then into landfills. Even if a locality offers plastics recycling, it is unlikely that a fast-food manager will transport a few empty buckets to the recycling center each week. Typically, a restaurant will empty a bucket in less than two days, so thousands of buckets are discarded across the U.S. every day. Additionally, it is more efficient to find a reuse for empty buckets than to shred them for making more plastic. Toward this end The International Pickle Bucket Rescue League, with its associated web page at geocities.com/sm_vermn/bucket, was founded in 2007 by Samuel H. Overman of King George, Virginia, U.S.A.¹ to encourage ordinary citizens to collect free, clean, sturdy, locally-available used pickle buckets. They offer them for reuse to their neighbors, boaters, gardeners, landscapers, foresters, livestock farmers, Civilian Emergency Response Teams, scouting troops, Little League sports teams, Animal Rescue League and SPCA chapters, and charities that use the buckets to collect, sort and distribute contributed clothing and household items to the needy.

Third party items are marketed to help consumers utilizes their 5 gallon buckets. Seats, tool caddies, hydroponic gardens, chamberpots, "street" drums, livestock feeders, and more have all been adapted from five gallon buckets.

Due to the risk of small children drowning a pictorial warning label is often impressed into the side of a five gallon bucket. Small toddlers can topple in head first and not have the strength or weight to tip the bucket over.