This week, the Associated Press made a change to its style guide that has the word dumpster as lowercase. This comes after capitalizing the word in the past, as Dumpster is a genericized trademark of an American brand name for a type of mobile garbage bin.

Is dumpster a proper noun?

The Associated Press stylebook agrees that “Dumpster” should be capitalized, but it recommends using a generic term like “trash bin” or “trash container” instead. ... —also capitalize “Dumpster.”

What is the generic name for dumpster?

The word is a generic trademark of Dumpster, an American brand name for a specific design. Generic usage of skip or skip bin is common in the UK, Australia and Ireland, as Dumpster is neither an established nor well known brand in those countries.