---
title: "A small innovation in the restaurant business, or where do you put the napkins?"
author: "Stan Voo"
url: https://www.99rabbits.com/blog/where-to-put-the-napkins
published: 2010-08-28
summary: "With no ashtrays in non-smoking rooms, there's nowhere to put a used napkin. My suggestion from 2010: a tiny trash can on every table."
---

# A small innovation in the restaurant business, or where do you put the napkins?

I don't know about others, but some of my friends and I have more than once run into the problem of **no ashtrays in non-smoking rooms**. Let me explain why: there's nowhere to throw used napkins, bits of paper and any other rubbish. In decent cafés the waiters do whisk dirty napkins off the table, of course, but I don't find it all that pleasant. You feel like you're being watched :)

I suggest solving this problem with special tabletop trash bins. It could be a scaled-down copy of an ordinary trash can, with a lid that opens when you press a little pedal with your finger:

*(Image lost: a picture of such a bin, taken from a Kimberly-Clark product page.)*

Why go to such lengths? Because if you just put out an ashtray, people will think smoking is allowed after all, plus you can't fit several napkins in an ashtray: they'll spill out, which isn't pretty :)