Stardew Valley: Who is the Trash Bear & How to Complete Sidequest

Stardew Valley is a game that is first and foremost about making your family’s farm thrive once again, and making heartfelt connections with Pelican Town and the nature that surrounds it. With that, there are numerous side quests and NPCs tied to helping preserve that nature, including one adorably peculiar character named Trash Bear. If you’re unfamiliar with it, and are wondering where to find this creature, here is our handy guide that explains just who the Trash Bear is and how to complete its sidequest.

Where to Find the Trash Bear in Stardew Valley

Despite its name, the Trash Bear (or panda, more like) is an adorably pudgy and welcoming mythical creature that first appears during the player’s 3rd year of the game. It appears on non-rainy days down by the locked Sewer Grate in Cindersap Forest, which you can access once you donate at least 60 artifacts to the museum and Gunther gives you the Rusty Key.

To find this exact spot, simply head south past Marnie’s Ranch until you find a narrow wooden bridge that connects to a tiny island with a single tree on it. Make your way across it and along the second narrow plank bridge that brings you to the other side of the forest. Head all the way south through the area, past where the Spring Onion patch appears in the Spring season, until you find Trash Bear sitting near the cliffside by the Sewer entrance.

Note that while Trash Bear doesn’t appear until your 3rd year, from that point it will always be there with its quest ready for pickup. So you don’t have to worry about having to seek the creature out right away, as there is no expiration of the quest. You can wait until Winter that year or whenever you wish to start it while focusing on your other tasks.

How to Complete the Trash Bear’s Requests in Stardew Valley

Once you find the Trash Bear and try to interact with them, a dialogue bubble with a random item will appear over its head. This indicates that it wants you to obtain and bring them that item. In exchange, the Trash Bear will aid in cleaning up trash found around the island, even providing some beneficial aesthetic upgrades to the townsfolk with its magic, similar to how the little Junimos work.

As for the items the Trash Bear will request, each season it will ask for two gathered items, which range from various seafood and crustaceans to foraged fruit, flowers, and vegetables. The items themselves will mostly be contingent on the season, and if you pick up a request and don’t fulfill it before the end of a season, it will expire and simply be replaced by a new request relevant to the new season.

After bringing 2 of these types of items, the Trash Bear will then request 2 cooked dishes which can be virtually any learnable dish in the game. Unlike the gathered item requests, however, the cooked dish requests will NEVER change, regardless of the season. Recipes for them can be learned by watching The Queen of Sauce on your TV every Sunday, and dishes themselves can be bought from Gus at the Stardrop Saloon, or from the Traveling Cart.

In order to cook dishes you will need to either upgrade your Farmhouse for the first time, which includes a full kitchen, or you can use Cookout Kits upon reaching Foraging Level 9.

The following are the possible items that can be requested from the Trash Bear, according to season:

Spring

Summer

Fall

Winter

Rewards For Completing Trash Bear Quests in Stardew Valley

After you complete the four requests (2 items, 2 cooked dishes) asked by Trash Bear, the creature will open its leafy umbrella and fly over to Pelican Town to bestow the following rewards:

• Remove the trash from Pam’s front yard by her trailer home
• Remove the trash by the water’s edge near The Sewers and replace it with bushes and trees
• Upgrade the dog pen near the Stardrop Saloon

There will also be an opportunity to upgrade Pam’s house from a trailer to a cottage, if your friendship with her is high enough (9 hearts or more).

That concludes our guide for who the Trash Bear is in Stardew Valley and how to complete its sidequest. We hope you found this helpful, and let us know which questline in Stardew Valley is your favorite.

Be sure to check out all of our other guides for Stardew Valley, such as our Top 7 Best Sprinkler Layouts.