Last week I became the proud owner of a Nifty Bin.
It is about the size of a household waste paper bin – the sort you might have by your desk if you have one of those (not gone all wifi), & still work with paper.
But the one I bought has a well fitting lid & a foot pedal to open it with. Inside there is a sturdy rubberised plastic bucket with a wire handle to make it easy to empty the waste from inside.
I think it was the scarlet colour which caught my eye. There was a big display of these bins just next to the lift in TKMAXX – some silver, some brushed steel, some black, but the scarlet was an exact match for one I already have in my kitchen.
Most discombobulatingly, I realise that that one must be 25 years old now. Bought in Peter Jones kitchen department, Italian, stylish, a perfect match for the small amount of red in the handmade tiles we had splashed out on for the surrounds to the counter tops in the new kitchen.
If I saw it outside now on a sunny day it might look sad & tired - like its owner, looking its age - but to my eye it is not showing any signs of wear; not on the outside at least, the bucket is a bit battered. Regular wipe downs to keep the outside looking pristine & hot soapy bleach to swish out the bucket are all it has needed to keep it in good nick.
The Nifty Bin is not quite a match for its bigger, older sibling – it has a domed silver top (bit like a baby dalek) rather than a flat red one, but otherwise seems identical in quality.
Just what I need to solve the problem of food waste now we can no longer mix it with cardboard or newspaper. I have been trying a large plastic bowl with a well-fitting lid, but that needs two hands to open, not good when you're trying to get rid of egg shells.
I saw the Nifty Bin on Friday but couldn’t carry it then; got around to going back on Tuesday – just as well because by then there were only three left, only one of them red, & one of the silver ones had a dent in its dome.
It cost £5.99. Can’t remember how much the bigger one cost but it must have been quite a lot more than that even in 1986 £s; it seemed extravagant for such a mundane item – couldn’t you just make do with plastic?
I was surprised to see from the label that this one was made in China.
A Google search for “Nifty Bin” failed to produce any information about the manufacturer. It did however produce a lovely photo of what Linzie Hunter calls a nifty bin – a 1950s design by Lucienne Day which her mother found in a charity shop, bringing another little wallow in nostalgia.
And the Peter Jones/John Lewis site offers a bigger (20 litre) version of my domed bin for £30. Doesn't say where it was made.
In its way, a parable & a paradigm for our time.
