A wave of solar-powered trash can installations is spreading through the EPCOT World Showcase pavilion by pavilion, and the cumulative effect on a beloved, if entirely unofficial, theme park guest tradition is becoming harder to ignore.
Morocco Is the Latest EPCOT World Showcase Pavilion Affected
WDWNT reported on Tuesday that Walt Disney World Resort had installed multiple solar-powered trash and recycling bins in the Morocco World Showcase Pavilion at EPCOT, sharing a photo of two of the new units in place. Each features an EPCOT World Showcase emblem on the side and a foot pedal at the base — a hygienic touch that allows guests to open the lid without using their hands.
The Morocco installation follows a rapidly expanding rollout that has already reached the Mexico, American Adventure, and Germany World Showcase Pavilions, as well as the Refreshment Outpost area tucked between the China and Germany Pavilions. The same model has appeared at Magic Kingdom Park as well.
Walt Disney World Resort even introduced a panelless indoor version in the Mexico Pavilion — identical in every way to the outdoor units except for the absent solar equipment on top, an obvious concession to the reality that sunlight doesn't reach indoor locations.
Solar-powered compactors inside each unit crush waste and recycling as it accumulates, allowing far more garbage to collect before custodial cast members need to swap the bags — a meaningful efficiency improvement across a park of EPCOT's scale.
What's Being Lost in the Process
The new design is drawing pushback from a vocal segment of EPCOT's most devoted festival-goers. For years, the flat tops of traditional World Showcase trash cans have served as makeshift high-top dining surfaces during the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, the EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays, and other busy seasonal events. Guests grabbing small plates and drinks from outdoor kiosks have long relied on those flat surfaces to set down their food when seating is scarce.
The new solar-powered cans end that workaround. Their curved, dome-shaped tops make it physically impossible to set a tray, a plate, or even a single cup on the surface without it sliding off. As the rollout advances pavilion by pavilion, that informal dining option is quietly disappearing from more and more of the EPCOT World Showcase.
Walt Disney World Resort has not commented publicly on the installations or addressed the fan response to the design change.
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