This $16 Amazon Find Has Made the Biggest Difference in Keeping My Kitchen Clean
I try to keep my kitchen as clean and tidy as I can, but it seems like such a futile effort anytime I crack an egg for a special bake, or get a pancake craving at midnight, or meal prep for the week — all of which happen a lot.
One recent discovery that has helped me stay a little tidier is this $16 HUAPPNIO Collapsible Kitchen Trash Can I found on Amazon. I like to cook and meal prep in large batches, so if I roast vegetables, I’ll do a lot at once and keep them in containers in the fridge. Or if I make a fruit salad, it needs to serve me well for at least two days. Whenever I meal prep, there are always a lot of scraps and peels, which I tend to just sweep into my sink with a knife as I’m prepping. But after buying the nifty collapsible bin, I feel like prep has become so much more pleasant.
I’m no longer hunching down to throw scraps into a bin under the sink or walking a few steps over to the larger kitchen bin, which inevitably leaves a trail of fruit juice and stains — you know what I’m talking about! Even when I’m descaling sardines or cleaning fish bought from the local fishmonger (sometimes they can miss a few!), I find it so much easier to just throw the bones and innards directly into a bin that’s actually close to me and not accidentally drop fish guts onto my kitchen floor.
For something so inexpensive, the bin is well-designed and well-thought-out. By far, the biggest selling point is that it’s collapsible. You hook it over a cabinet door under or near your counter and open it up when you need to use it, and then just push it back in when you’re done so it doesn’t take up further space. Not that it’s super obtrusive to begin with — the bin is normally about 6 inches when expanded and squeezes down to just 2.3 inches. If you don’t want to hang it directly under the counter, there is a sticker mount which allows you to hang it directly on a wall and gives you flexibility to use the bin outside of the kitchen, too.
The smart design also means it doesn’t take up any counter space. Rather than sitting on your counter like other bins, it hangs right next to you as you chop, dice, and julienne and use the knife to shimmy food scraps into the bin — without fear of juices running onto the floor! The collapsible bin is a good size for vegetable scraps, fruit peels, tea bags, and more so it acts as a temporary bin before I take it over to my larger kitchen trash can.
At the bottom of the bin is a tiny garbage bag holder, which is convenient, but the bags that HUAPPNIO provide are quite thin and small. But no matter what types of bag you use, you’ll definitely want to make sure to clip them in place at the top of the bin. It holds the garbage bag in place, so when you throw in something heavy like a wet clump of pumpkin seeds, the bag doesn’t fall down and cause further mess.
I’m still working on keeping my kitchen clean at all times, but at the moment, with this nifty little collapsible bin, I’m OK being clean-ish.
Buy: HUAPPNIO Collapsible Kitchen Trash Can, $15.99 (originally $16.99)