recycle bin

First sense appears c. 1971, in the Arizona Daily Sun. Computing sense appears in 1995 with the Windows 95 operating system.

recycle bin (plural recycle bins)

1. A container in which items to be recycled may be placed.
2. (computing) In Microsoft Windows, a storage location for deleted files, from which they can be retrieved or permanently deleted.

• recycling bin (sense 1)
• trash (sense 2, on other operating systems and emails)