The five-gallon bucket is a common 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. The five-gallon bucket is also known as the 18- or 20-liter bucket.

Building materials and solvents have been packaged in large metal pails, but in recent decades plastic buckets have been greatly favored. Plastic buckets have more uses due to the popularity of plastic for food products and the tendency of metal pails to rust.^[1]

Many restaurants receive products in food-grade five-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.

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.

It is more efficient to find a reuse for empty buckets than to shred them for making more plastic. The bucket is also used everyday by hundreds of street performers who use the bucket as a form of busking. Bucket drumming is where a person drums on five gallon plastic buckets.[1]

Third party items are marketed to help consumers utilizes their five-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.

• Bucket
• Duct tape
• Americana

1. Earth Day 2008 article, Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance-Star Newspaper[2]
2. Warning[3]

Articles on 5 gallon bucket as Americana

• "Passing the Bucket: How the five-gallon plastic bucket came to the aid of grassroots environmentalists" by Michelle Nijhuis
• "Five-gallon farm collectibles" by Jennifer M. Latzke
• "How To Bucket Drum"