This abandoned Brabantia bin caught my attention one morning and I wondered whether it was broken or the casualty of an upgrade? I was on my way to our kids nursery so I didn’t have time to check but decided that if it was there later I’d look into it. Literally.

That evening the bin was still there so I took it home, gave it a good wash and a thorough inspection. The striking pin had broken off but the rest of it was in perfect condition. This tiny piece of missing plastic is the thing that holds the lid shut so without it the bin is transformed into a glorified bucket. It’s effin’ crazy that this tiny piece of plastic could be responsible for so much material waste! I pop it onto the weighing scales, 3.8Kg of Stainless Steel and plastic destined for landfill for something the size of a flippin’ match?!

Fixing for strangers is born.

This was the moment Fixing for strangers began to form in my mind. I wanted to fix this bin to see if I could but also to extend it’s life and save it from landfill. But what the hell would I do with it then? Returning it to it’s owner was effectively giving them their trash back? Hahaaa, now that would be an interesting conversation. The idea was fuzzy as hell but I felt that there was hidden potential for all kinds of discoveries lurking there. I thought I’d start with fixing it and just see where it took me.

Damn them.

Just to state the obvious here, the part I needed to replace was missing so I had to find one to copy. I figured the easiest thing to do was to go to a shop and take the measurements from one of the bins on display. I was relatively comfortable with the idea of going into a store to do this, I was also fairly certain that Fixing for strangers was going to generate plenty of unusual interactions so I had better get used to it and besides, it’s not illegal 😉 I take my vernier caliper to John Lewis where I end up opening all the Brabantia bins like a madman, each and every one of them had some newfangled closing mechanism. Brabantia had changed the design! At this point I recite some very colourful language in an impromptu chant to the gods of misfortune. The new design obviously addresses a design flaw so is definitely a good thing but not for me right now, no sir. Defeated and hoping I hadn’t attracted the attention of an eager sales assistant or an overzealous security guard, I put my vernier away and leave.

I see dead people.

This marked the beginning of a string of unusual events. First of all I seemed to have developed some kind of Brabantia vision. I’m like that kid in The Sixth Sense except I see Brabantia bins! Just a few days later I see one behind the counter in a local independent shop, I’ve been going there for years and had never noticed it before, but today it’s screaming at me! Not to ignore my good fortune, I ask them if I may take some measurements from their bin, as you do, but Sod’s law strikes again, the feckin pin was broken on this one too!!!! This was getting ridiculous.

Google to the rescue.

No more public displays of madness for me so I turn to google for some “anonymous” help. Here I find pin designs that I use as a reference to build my 3D model. The part I need to replace is tiny, it’s not much bigger than a match which would literally be impossible to glue onto the bin. I need to develop some way of mounting it to the bin.

In order to add stability and strength to the pin I decide to build an extension, a scorpion like detail to wrap under the rim of the bin where I can glue it firmly in place. I’m pretty happy with the design so print it out to test.

One satisfying click.

I use Sugru to bond the pin in place as it’s mouldable and can fill the space in and around my 3D printed part and the bin. For added strength I mould it around the back of the part so it’s completely embedded, then leave it for 24 hours to set. I’m feeling pretty confident that it’ll make a solid fix, if it works that is.

The next day I press the lid down slowly until I hear one very satisfying click. I smile a broad smug smile. It worked. My pride was to be short lived though, somehow the bugger just opened up all by itself again. This pin was going to be trickier than I thought, it takes several prototypes to refine the pin and to make it work reliably. For example, one pin was so sensitive that a gentle knock to the bin would open the lid. I modelled several minor changes altering the pitch of the stem, the height of the stem and the size and angles on the catch detail at the top. As I work though the modifications and test them I’m totally surprised with how precise the part needs to be!

I work for free 🙂

The final design is now available on Thingiverse for anyone to download for free and fix their bin or indeed fix a bin for a stranger or a friend 🙂 If you don’t own a 3D printer, you can have the part printed on 3D Hubs, the airbnb for 3D printers. I use this service all the time and LOVE IT. Apologies for the Sugru plug but as co-founder of Sugru, I’m a massive fan of the product and use it all the time. You can be assured that I only use it when it’s the right material for the job though.

Things get weird!

Let’s get things into context for a moment. When I started Fixing for strangers we had two boys under the age of two with our youngest just three months old! Clearly I was looking for something to fill my spare time 😉 The upshot was that fixing this bin took quite a bit longer for me to get round to than I had imagined and over this time, things got a bit weird. What started out as a relatively simple exercise in fixing one bin for a neighbour I didn’t know turned into a bit of an epidemic. I can’t explain it but in the following months, I found eight broken Brabantia bins, six of which were on my nursery route!

How the hell was there Brabantia bins everywhere all of a sudden? Well it seems I was experiencing what is known as the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. By noticing one Brabantia bin, I simply acquired selective attention for Brabantia bins and bam, I’m spotting them everywhere. After a while, things got a bit ridiculous so I made the difficult decision to stop, otherwise I’d have to ask Brabantia to give me a job 😉

Broken Brabantia Bin #2

I spot this bin in L’Epicerie 56, a lovely independent grocer on Chatsworth Road run by a mad, sorry Remy 😉 but lovely French man. I thought I could measure the striking pin to help me fix the first bin but was shocked to find that it was broken too! On reflection this makes total sense, if a product is likely to break once then the probability for it to break all the time is pretty high. Yikes! That could be a lot of broken bins! I wonder if this was the source of a lot of pain for Brabantia? In the end, this turns out to be one of the last bins I fix, more on that later…

Broken Brabantia Bin #3

An upright lid is the telltale sign of a broken Brabantia bin and there is no question that I’ve developed acute selective attention for it. In this instance, 95% of the bin is buried in a box and hidden behind a frikin’ wall and yet I still manage to see it!!!!

It turns out that this poor bin was being dumped in it’s successors box, I couldn’t imagine a more tragic sendoff. As it’s illegal to just take something from someones property, rubbish included, I knock on the door to speak to the owner about my little obsession. She is lovely and enjoys my quirky idea. Her husband has bought himself a fancy new bin with a sensor to open the lid so no longer needs this old workhorse. I’m free to take it away. Again I’m confronted with what I’m going to do with this thing when it’s fixed but take it anyway. Where on earth is this project going?

Fixing the broken pin.

The base of this pin was still intact, only the top had broken off. In order for my scorpion pin to work here I was going to have to cut it off. I used my trusty Leatherman to break it off and to cut a slot into the rim to accommodate the 3D printed scorpion pin. Once this was done, the process was the same as with the first bin however, I learned that there were variations in the pin design on the different sized bins. I still don’t know why this is exactly but the pin needed to be 2mm longer. 2mm!!!!! so even though I had  a working solution ready, it took a further two iterations to fix this bin.

Fixing the cracks.

The bin also had several cracks on it’s plastic rim which clearly needed fixing. I thought about drilling small holes and stitching the cracks with a fine wire but decided that I’d see if Sugru could do the job first as it would be much less work for me and would also look less weird. I had already repaired a bicycle mudguard with this method recently and had mixed feelings about the result although, the bin would be easier to fix with that method as the plastic here was thicker and closer fitting.

Sugru worked a treat on the test crack which then gave me the confidence to fix all 9 cracks with Sugru. This bin has certainly lived a long life already, I hope this will ready it for a new chapter in it’s illustrious career.

Broken Brabantia Bin #4

About a month later I stumble onto this one deserted in the snow on a street corner and I get a dopamine hit. There is logic to this physical response but I find it a little unsettling to feel this rush for finding rubbish! In the past I might have questioned why someone thought it was OK to dump their stuff on the street like this but in this instance it makes me happy! Is there something wrong with me? Without any hesitation I take it home and clean it up like some kind of bin Samaritan.

The pin is replaceable!

It’s a striker pin issue again but this time things are different, this bin has a removable pin!!!! It’s a fantastic improvement on the original moulded in design. Brabantia have gone and solved the problem! For Brabantia to make this change is a clear sign to me that the original design was flawed. I love catching this glimpse into the subtle but significant design evolution of a bin. I’m sure anthropologists feel excited when they discover history manifest in a clear and logical progression like this.

The striking pin is clearly the most vulnerable part of the bin and to make it easy to switch out is a stroke of genius. It looks like a model of the Eiffel Tower 🙂 was that the playful intention or a happy accident? Either way I applaud Brabantia. Wow. Fixing this bin was stupidly easy, I bought a replacement Eiffel Tower striking pin on eBay for £7.15 but later discovered that I should have bought the part directly from Brabantia. They sell it for just £2.25 including postage! Wow, these guys couldn’t make it any easier or more of a no-brainer to to fix your bin. Note to self, in future always check the brands website first.

A little bit of Brabantia history.

I was super curious to understand more about the evolution of the striking pin on Brabntia bins so did a little research and got in touch with them. They introduced their first waste bins featuring Touch Bin Technology in 1999. Then thirteen years later in 2012 they started to implement their replaceable striker pin, the blue Eiffel Tower part I saw on this bin. Just two years later in 2014 they started to implement their new “large catch” designs which drove me mad in John Lewis earlier on in this project 😉

Brabantia have twelve years of sales of their original striking pin design out in the world, the bins I’ve found are probably at least 6 years old so it stands to reason that a lot more of these bins are likely to break in the coming years.

The fact is that Brabantia make super durable and beautiful bins that last and last but I am reminded of the sage lyric from David Homes’ song, Head Rush on Lafayette from his 1997 album Let’s Get Killed; “…the strongest chain breaks as fast as it’s weakest link…” and the striking pin is clearly Brabanita’s weakest link.

Super Customer.

In spite of their amazing efforts to address the problem, I discover some incredibly interesting stuff online that triggers thoughts I’d like to share. These thoughts were stimulated by what I would call a Super Customer and I would define them as a customer that behaves in an exemplary way outside the standard remit of being a customer. While I’m aware that it’s easy to stand on the sideline and throw out thoughts and ideas like this, I do so with respect and admiration for Brabantia and hope it is warmly received.

Learn from the vigilantes.

When I was looking for spare parts on eBay I stumbled onto a very interesting post by what I can only describe as a Brabantia vigilante. The post shouting “BRABANTIA REPLACEMENT LIDS ARE FREE” could not be more pertinent for people actively seeking spare parts. Could this be a more timely reminder to go and check the after sales service with the manufacturer? The surprising thing here is that this post is absolutely necessary, people, myself included, often don’t think to go to the brands own website for help, we just don’t think that the support we need will be there. The easy to miss genius of this post is that it is a signpost that appears exactly where it needs to be, on a platform where people are looking for spare parts.

Originally I assumed this was posted by Brabantia and was super impressed by their resourcefulness in reaching their customers in their time of need but it turns out I was wrong. This truly altruistic act was by a lovely woman called Rebecca and this is why she did it:

“I was prompted to do that because I was genuinely pleasantly surprised that in this day and age there was still a rare company who would stand by their product and offer really decent after sales service.”

Rebecca, you are a wonderful person, I wonder how many bins you have helped save from landfill? There is so much we can learn from what you did here. What if Brabanita were to adopt your approach? To pro-actively be where people are looking for solutions to fixing their bin. To let people know to come to them for support, that as a brand, they are ready and waiting to help. Brabantia could make a full service outpost on these platforms or just use it as a place stick a sign in the sand just like Rebecca did. I’d love to see this and I’m sure many people trying to fix their bins would absolutely love it too.

Holy cow, they have a 10 year guarantee!

I have absolutely no idea why I didn’t go to the Brabantia website sooner than I did. Thank you Rebecca. As the internet matures and more companies do direct sales, a brands own website is often the go to place to find the best after sales support. It really is a pleasant surprise to find their service and guarantee section where they offer spare parts much cheaper than what I’ve seen anywhere else on the mighty internet. They even offer replacement lids, an extraordinary and expensive service for them to offer. But the big discovery for me was their 10 year guarantee. Whaaaatttt!? In spite of owning a Brabantia bin I was totally unaware of their kick ass warranty. Had I not noticed or had I just forgotten about it?

What’s the problem?

The begging question for me now is would I have found all these bins if people knew about the guarantee and after sales service Brabantia offer? Are people throwing out stuff just because their expectations for support is so low or is throwaway culture so pervasive that fixing and maintaining our stuff is simply out of fashion and not practiced any more? Or is it a case of simply wanting a new bin?! Is retail therapy the problem?

Repair V’s Replace…

This is a classic conundrum. Fixing something new always makes sense, but as things get older we enter a new dialogue of value and worth. In the case of a bin that’s ten years old it could feel like it’s served it’s time and not worth the investment. Once your Brabantia bin is outside it’s generous warranty, the only option is to buy a replacement lid. While their lids are fairly priced, starting at £18, just imagine you owned a bin for over ten years, would it feel perhaps a little excessive to invest a third of the price of a new bin to fix something this old? Would you consider getting a new bin instead? I wonder how you would respond to a £3 repair option, an investment thats’s just one twentieth the price of a new bin. Would this help you keep your bin off the street? It’s interesting to think about the value and worth of products as they age and what people consider a reasonable investment to repair and maintain these products over time.

A genius little idea.

In my digital ramblings, I found Harryindustries, an eBay seller who developed a 3D printed clip on striker pin for Brabantia bins. It’s a genius little fix and possibly a smart little business too. Just like Rebecca, it’s particularly clever to appear in the place where people are actively looking for solutions.

I was super interested to know how many bins Harry has helped to keep out of landfill over the years so I got in touch with him through the eBay messaging service. This was his response.

Good man Jon. I just love your story. It makes sense that no problem is unique, that when something fails for one person, it’s likely to fail for many others too. This has certainly been my experience. Jon made the assumption that his solution would be useful to other people when he put it on his eBay shop and it turns out he was absolutely right.

It’s incredibly rare for a customer to go to so much effort to prolong the life of a product and even more so to offer their solution to more people too. eBay is incredible for enabling people to make their ideas available to the world in a simple shop like this. I take my hat off to Jon for his entrepreneurial spirit and his desire to help others. The comments that accompany Jon’s five star rating are enlightening too, from “much preferable to a new lid or bin” to “Clever idea indeed” and “Brilliant fix”, I think peoples sentiment here is very telling, remember these are the people that took the time to avoid unnecessary waste and expense and found Jon’s solution to be an excellent and cost effective solution.

The thing is, Jon’s fix is a logical solution that fulfils a clear need. I’m going to stick my neck out and say that even with their excellent post sales service Brabantia have not completely solved the problem. I’m sorry Brabantia, I say this as a customer, as a fan of your customer service and the quality of your products. It seems to me that Jon intuitively understands that to replace the lid does not solve the problem as it is likely to break again and this would put him in an endless cycle of replacing lids. The problem really lies with the pin and his solution focused on that. With this fix, I wonder if replacing the entire lid is always necessary? How many people could benefit from his fix? It begs the question, does Jon’s fix need to exist on a much larger scale?

Reward the vigilantes.

For a moment, imagine if Brabantia fully embraced Jon’s fix. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Imagine if they licensed his idea from him and offered the solution to their customers directly! Or perhaps they could officially endorse his solution so that people would have total confidence in the option. They could direct their customers to his eBay shop. This is the kind of community building, open minded customer support that would excite me as a designer, as a Brabantia customer and as a member of the human race. To get Jon’s solution out there, it needs proper distribution and while Jon’s eBay shop is in theory available to everyone all over the world, it is safe to say that it will not be found by most people. For optimum reach, being endorsed by Brabantia could make a significant difference. Similarly, manufacturing the solution and making it available as a spare part in retail and on their online shop could have a significant impact. Selling via their third party online resellers and making it available from eBay and other unofficial sales platforms and also appearing on Amazon’s algorithm could find a lot of people too. This small idea could be a big idea if taken to the next level. I for one would be super excited to see some of this happen.

The power of choice.

I wonder what would happen if Brabantia were to offer Jon’s fix as a option for their customers under warranty? Where they could chose a new replacement lid or just a replacement part. Personally, I would like to think that I’d be more comfortable with a replacement part as it is significantly less wasteful than replacing the entire lid. It might seem obvious to say this but replacing the lid means that the original lid goes straight to landfill* and in my mind, this represents a lot of unnecessary waste. Waste I would very much like the choice to avoid. I wonder how their wider customer base wold respond to this choice?

This triggers some other thoughts, for example, for every customer that chooses a spare part over a replacement lid, Brabantia could in addition donate to a charity or to an environmental cause. This way the potential environmental saving is even bigger and the cost to Brabantia is still lower than replacing the lid. I make this suggestion in the case where people might think that offering a clip on solution is being cheap and skirting their warranty obligations. While I don’t believe this level of generosity is entirely necessary, I find these scenarios rich with all kinds of exciting opportunities to stimulate and reward people, it’s always interesting to think how to make the environmental option more appealing.

* On the subject of old Brabantia bins ending up in landfill, I found this message on the box I found on the street where they actively encourage their customers to recycle their old bins. Unfortunately, based on the number of bins I’ve found thrown away it would suggest that a lot of people don’t make the effort to do this. It’s a big shame of course as the materials are valuable and widely recycled. So while recycling the bin and the lid is possible, it’s not practiced by everyone, even in a city like London with excellent recycling services.

The Brabantia re-homing scheme.

It’s pretty clear that people want to change their bins, that when they break it gives them the excuse to go and find a new bin, a bit of retail therapy and an opportunity to match your bin to your kettle, sorry, was that a bit harsh?! But I wonder if something could be done here. The bins I’ve fixed are 99.99% perfect and also completely fixable. What if these bins could be re-homed rather than sent to landfill? I wonder if Brabantia could actively nurture a re-homing scheme for their customers old bins? Wouldn’t that be lovely. Brabantia bins are expensive but they are great bins. Perhaps there are people that would love an old bin that might be available for a small fee. My experience with Brabantia bins would suggest that a bin that reaches the end of it’s life in one home has a lot of life in it still. Something like this could be executed in a small way on social media as a trial, oh, what a beautiful thought…

The future is bright.

I’m excited to think about a world where big brands embrace contributions by individuals like Jon, where the future potential for collaborative problem solving is unlimited. In order to achieve this, we need leaders, brands like Brabantia to set the example and to encourage people all around the world to take part in prolonging the life of their products and even making design contributions. This is something that happens a lot in software, where companies release beta versions and the programming community are encouraged to find bugs etc. It happens with open source software like Linux and information platforms like Wikipedia. It’s not so common in the hardware world. In fact, I don’t know any examples! But if there was a culture of embracing customers contributions, of rewarding their work and ideas, of implementing them to their wider community of customers, then interesting things can happen. Customers could then start to share the responsibility with companies. We can feel more involved as we can start to have a real impact and influence on the products we buy and the brands we chose to believe in. I’m excited, but enough of my ramblings, I actually found more bins!

Broken Brabantia Bin #5

This one was in a community centre in my hometown back in Ireland. It’s weird, the bin literally beckoned me from across the room! I noticed the lid standing upright, a scene all too familiar to me now and I just had to find out if it was broken too. It was. But not in the same way. It had a broken catch, a part that is super easy to replace. This time I buy the part directly from Brabantia and post it to my sister Joan to switch out for me. When I spoke to her about the project I was pleasantly surprised to learn that she too has a Brabantia bin at home and has replaced the same catch herself already. It’s a fantastic example of making the most vulnerable part of the bin easy to fix to prolong it’s life.

Joan popped in with the spare part I sent her and they fixed the bin themselves, it came with instructions and tools so it was pretty easy to do. Later she told me that they were “so impressed” that someone would just come and fix their bin like that. Awwww, thanks guys 🙂 It’s a real pleasure.

Brabantia got a lot right with their designs. The ease with which this part was replaced really is testament to how they have designed fixing into their products. The catch is designed as a replaceable part in the same way as the Eiffel Tower striking pin we saw in Bin #4. It’s clearly difficult to get everything right though.

Broken Brabantia Bin #6

About a month later I spot this one among a pile of rubbish in front of someones house, it looks like they were having a bit of a Spring clean. This bin has certainly seen it’s fair share of abuse over the years. I had already decided to stop collecting bins before I saw this but seeing this particular bin introduced an interesting factor that I hadn’t consciously considered before: aesthetics. As all the previous bins were in good condition, I hadn’t realised how significant a factor that was for me. The thing is I don’t want to fix this stuff for no reason, fixing them has a purpose beyond the creative challenge to fix them, I want them to be used again and it is all of a sudden very obvious that the bins would need to look good if someone was to invite them into their homes and live with them. A little bit of character is OK but dented and battered like this it seems goes a bit too far.

I feel bad about this decision and wonder if it’s damaged and compromised aesthetics was in fact an interesting problem for me to address? Could I fix that somehow?

Broken Brabantia Bin #7

When I first spotted this one tucked between a car and a house, I thought it was just being left out for the “bin men” to take away. Hahaaa, that’s pretty meta. But a few days later I realised that the owner had repurposed it. They now use it as a bollard to reserve their parking space. Brilliant. This bin is now an unofficial bollard. There is nothing for me to fix here! The bin isn’t broken because it’s no longer a bin.

So this one is incredibly interesting. It’s a repurposed bin but it hasn’t been materially changed or altered in any way. It’s function is redefined simply by changing it’s environment or it’s context. There is a lot of beauty in applying the absolute minimum design to a solution as possible and this is a classic case in point for me. It’s so easy to dismiss something like this as an accident or without real thought or intent but I like to think this is brilliant, that the subconscious designer is a creative genius, one not burdened by rules and aesthetics. The crazy thing is had I taken this bin away to fix it, I would have been stealing their bollard! Phew, I narrowly escaped being an accidental thief there.

Does Richard Wentworth live here?

Over a month later I notice that the bin had gone, unknowingly taken away by someone who didn’t realise it had been repurposed as a bollard perhaps? Of course a bollard was still needed so another one was fashioned, this time from a bag of rubbish and a red board. I’m reminded of Richard Wentworth and his wonderful book Making Do And Getting By, a book full of wonderful everyday observations like this. I suspect that the latest bollard will suffer a similar fate and be disposed of by a bin man in the near future too leaving this person and their inventiveness to fashion yet another bollard from unlikely items. I wonder if I should observe the various iterations of bollard they are yet to devise as they are inevitably disposed of one by one or whether this is something for me to fix in a more permanent way for them? I love to see interventions like this so I decide to just observe route, at least for a little while.

Broken Brabantia Bin #8

I had committed to stop collecting and fixing Brabantia bins a while ago but then I spotted this one. It’s a Brabantia bin in a Brabantia bin box beside a bin. I just had to take it home! I wonder will this madness ever end?!!!

Right, the pin on this bin was again just partially broken off, this is the third bin out of the four I’ve fixed with the original integrated pin design that still had a stump remaining. Damn it, I’m going to have to develop a better fix!

The fact is that cutting the base of the pin out as I had done on Bin #3 and was considering doing on Bin #2 would not be the right solution for 75% of people with this problem. It’s important to me that the fix I create be appropriate for as many people as possible, particularly as I would love for people to use it, it’s why I have uploaded the file for free online. I’m going to have to do some more design development and prototyping. Brabantia will be the death of me yet 😉

The first thing I need to do is figure out what kind of pin profile I can fit onto and around the existing stump that will still allow the mechanism to work and it’s a really tight squeeze! I start by modelling a variation on my original fix, the scorpion pin and imagine that I can make it clip onto the bin. After one rip roaring failure I decide to focus my attention just on the pin detail so I can understand exactly what profile will work before I figure out the mounting mechanism. After several iterations I get a working profile. Next I need to figure out how I attach it to the bin. It was at this point that I realised just how smart Jon’s solution was and decide to borrow the principle he used. Several iterations later, I have a working solution that just clips on and works. YeeeeeHaaaaa To be honest, I’m surprised that I could get a pin to fit around the stump like this, I’m thrilled.

Self disposing pin.

There is one final issue to address, the irony is if it this pin falls off it literally disposes of itself straight into the bin like a piece of trash! I want to add features to help avoid this tragic fate and to make this as permanent a fix as possible so model a snap-lock detail that snaps around the stump and also a Sugru “rivet” detail that allows me to glue the pin in place too. It’s becoming a bit of a Fort Knox fix 😉 Here’s the final deign, I’m pretty thrilled with the result 🙂

Brabantia, I need your help!

I make another version of this clip on pin to fix Remy’s bin too, his bin is Broken Brabantia Bin #2 from this epic series. It’s a size H bin so the pin needs to be 2mm taller, but when I try to pop it on, I discover that the rim is thicker and also the stump is wider so it doesn’t fit! Crikey, there are lots of subtle variations between all the Brabantia bins that are hard to anticipate and I have no idea whether there is some standard logic at play or if it’s all a little random. For example, the two large size H or 40L bins I have found have a 3.5mm rim and a 4.3mm rim while three of the four size G or 30L bins have a 3mm rim while one has a 2.5mm rim. It’s a bit of a minefield. Brabantia, I’m going to need your help here. The 3D files for the clip on striking pin fixe are now uploaded here onto Thingiverse for everyone to use. I’d love for you to take a look at them and advise me on how to specify which bins they will fit so that anyone that wants to use this fix can do so with confidence. Actually, why not get in touch, I’d love to figure this out properly and the truth is only you can help with that as I’m pretty much working blind. Just imagine what an hour with your engineers could achieve?!

I figure out the variables for Remy’s bin but then I realise that the stump is a bit bigger than the previous one. I thought about what the best solution for this might be and then had a mini brainwave. The objective is to make a fix that loads of people can use and a one size fits all solution would be ideal. I decide to simply file the stump down using a nail file, a tool even the most DIY averse will own 😉 The next day I bring my nail file with me and am delighted to find that it’s perfect to file the stump down.

Finally, I snap the pin on. It’s not a perfect fit, but it does work really well. I decide against adding Sugru to this one as I just might do another version. To make this perfect, I’d need to take the lid home as popping in and out of the shop with each prototype, there have been about six, is a bit tedious.

I think it looks great in red! Previously I had been making the pins in black so that they would blend in but now I wish I had fixed them all with red, it stands out as a vibrant and proud fix not to mention being much easier to photograph 😉

Right, this is the model that will be posted onto Thingiverse for anyone to download. There will be a few different versions for the variations in the bins that I am aware of. I do hope Brabantia get in touch, I’d love to make this even better.

Love your stuff.

While working on fixing these bins it occurred to me that I wasn’t just fixing them but that I was changing them substantively. I love things, not for their monetary value but for the role they play in creating atmosphere and personality in our lives and our homes. Just try to imagine living without things, it’s simply impossible. While it’s normal to overlook the rich contribution inanimate objects make to our lives we often subconsciously form an important relationship with them, one that evolves into a personal sense of value, a value that motivates us to preserve these things, to keep them for longer and not seek out an upgrade or a replacement. This value we feel towards things is sustainability at it’s purest and best. There is no sense of obligation or guilt required to motivate us to be sustainable in this way, it’s inherent in our actions when we happen to love our stuff.  This is an empowering way to own things. It enables you to become less subservient to the pervasive power of advertising and it’s ability to create desire for things we just don’t need. The desire that provokes us to buy new versions of the things we already have. To invest time and energy and money in replacing things unnecessarily. This is time, energy and money that we can spend on other things, on adventures and experiences or simply the freedom to earn less. This perverse desire fuels consumerism and distracts us from experiencing happiness and contentedness with what we have. This may not be easy or even possible to do all the time but it is something we can aim to achieve at least some of the time.

It’s true, I am crazy!

As I was fixing these bins it became important to me that I find new owners for them, that I wasn’t just fixing them for fun but that they would be used and valued again. At the start, I thought that the most poetic and appropriate way for this to happen was via their original owners, the people that discarded them in the first place. For some reason it just felt right that they be the ones to pass them on. I wrote to them, I spoke to some of them, I posted messages on trees to find them and sent emails to them but in the end I had to give up. It should have come as no surprise that people don’t really want to talk about their old junk. It was a difficult thing for me to accept at first but in the end I just had to respect their lack of engagement.

I must admit, the single most difficult thing about this project has been getting in touch with people about their old bins. I found it extremely nerve wrecking as I was confronted by the pure weirdness of what I was doing. I think I felt vulnerable at that stage. These are all neighbours of mine, people I don’t know but live near and pass every day, we may not know each other now but we sure as hell are going to know each other once I speak to them about this! I guess I didn’t want to be seen as a local clown or weirdo that likes to fix crap on the street. The thing is I take this pretty seriously and I suspect I was afraid that what I was doing would be dismissed or even laughed at. While it was uncomfortable I am glad that I tried to get them involved, even though it didn’t work out at least I tried. Needless to say, I’m NOT going to give up looking for new owners for these bins.

Could you love an old bin?

These bins were well used before they broke, before they were demoted to junk and dumped on the street but as a result of their precarious journeys I like to think that they have grown emboldened new facets to their personalities, that they are lucky and resilient, enriched by their experience and all the more intriguing and beautiful as a result. Now that they are fixed again I want to find people to adopt them, people that can appreciate their uniqueness, will love them and keep them going for years to come.

Please share this blog post and help me find four loving owners for these remarkable objects. Of course, if this sounds like you, let me know, I have a bin that would love to meet you.

Thank you for reading. All comments, corrections, suggestions and support welcome.

Until next time, all the very best, James

Brabantia selfie 🙂

Just in case it wasn’t clear, I am a Brabantia fan, here I am at home with our lovely mineral pink Brabantia bin. We have being using this beauty several times a day for two and a half years now and it’s as good as the day we bought it. Ironically the lid mechanism is a “soft close flip top” which means there is no striking pin or catch at all, it just swings open with a gentle nudge and a perfectly balanced cantilever hinge does the rest. It’s a beautiful mechanism and a joy to use, in fact, I’d say it’s Brabantias most successful lid mechanism and because it has fewer moving parts, I believe that it will last much longer than their other lid mechanisms. Nice work Brabantia.