Kitchen Ideas - Waste Bin

We always wonder how other working couples organize their kitchens, particularly with regard to the "little" things. Little things such as the waste bin, the wiping rag, chopping board, dish detergent, scouring pads, etc. Because those items determine whether your kitchen is cluttered and disorganized, or neat and functional.

Waste Bin

For instance, what do you do with your kitchen waste? Do you use a waste bin and clear it only at the end of the day? Where do you place the waste bin -- inside a cabinet, or simply at a corner of the kitchen floor?

In our old kitchen we had one of those plastic bins that opened by stepping on a pedal. At first we placed the

bin on the floor near the kitchen sink, but soon found it unwieldy to open the bin using the pedal. Subsequently, after we stopped using the bin pedal, and to keep the kitchen tidy, we placed the waste bin inside the sink cabinet.

Not very practical. To throw kitchen waste, we had to open and shut two sets of "doors" - the sink cabinet door and the lid for the bin.

Finally we put away the plastic bin and simply use a waste basket lined with a plastic bag. That was placed on the floor near the sink. Untidy, yes, and a sore sight for the eyes. But it was practical.

For our new kitchen we decided to look at solutions available in the market, such as those offered by Ikea and Poh Joo.

Ikea, Blum and Hettich all provide purpose-built bins for kitchen waste that are placed inside deep drawers under the worktop. The idea is neat and quite presentable, but not practical in our climate.

In our humid and hot climate, we think kitchen waste kept in bins inside deep drawers will go bad very quickly, producing an offensive odor that is difficult to remove inside deep drawers.

Here in Singapore our waste bins are cleared daily by environmental trucks, but in Australia the local council truck clears the rubbish bin once a week because the cool weather permits that.

We also saw a built-in waste bin for the worktop as presented by Poh Joo:

Waste bin with lid built into worktop, S$150 from Poh Joo

Open bin with removable ring removed

Removable ring holds plastic bag to the rim


Poh Joo's waste bin came complete with an outlet plug at the bin bottom that connects to a outlet pipe below the worktop. That allows the bin to be washed easily when the waste has been cleared.
OUR SOLUTION?
None of the commercial solutions appealed to us.

Our idea is simply to use the second bowl of a two-bowl sink as the receptacle for our kitchen waste. Our waste bin is a plastic container with a plastic bag in it, placed in the smaller bowl of the sink, like so:
Waste from food preparation placed into plastic bag

Plastic container cleared after food preparation

Placing the waste bin at the sink near to the Food Prep Zone is logical, because that's where the waste originates.

If desired, we could put the waste bin on the worktop as we prepare the food. When food preparation is completed, simply throw the plastic bag with its waste content into the rubbish chute, wash the plastic container under the tap, and we are done!