I live in an area that can get quite windy (northern Nevada). 25 mph is not unusual, and there are occasional 40+ mph days. We roll out a wheeled bin of recyclables every other week for curbside pickup. If it’s a windy day, it’s not uncommon for the entire neighborhood of bins to have their lids blown open and even knocked over with contents spilled everywhere. We’re talking winds strong enough to topple a 50+ lb bin.
A better way was in order. Just looking at the design of the lid you can see the large front lip area is a ready made sail. Our curb orientation is such that this faces the predominant wind direction so it was constantly flying open.
So the first order of business is to remove most of that and relegate the side of the lid for hand holds.
I removed the front lip with a vibrating saw. This made a big improvement in wind resistance. But the super windy days would still get enough lift on the side lips to flip the top open.
So the next step was to come up with a way to provide enough force to keep the lid closed, but still allow it to open when it was picked up and dumped into the truck. Shock cord and a breakaway lanyard connector did the trick. This breakaway has an approximate 10 lb release.
To put this together, first drill a hole in the lid big enough for the shock cord to pass through.
Attach one end of the lanyard connector as shown.
Drill a second hole in the lower ledge, thread the shock cord through and attach the mating end of the breakaway. Tie a knot on the other end such that it provides a decent amount of tension when the breakaway is connected.
In testing this on windy days, the lid now stays closed in even the worst conditions. When the bin is dumped, there is enough weight from the recyclables to ensure the breakaway pops. This setup doesn’t address preventing the bin from getting blown over on the extreme wind days, but at least the contents don’t spill.