When my husband and I moved into our first home together, we discovered that the previous owners had left behind a few things, all of which we gratefully kept and used for years. One of these bonus treasures was a perfectly lovely wide-mouthed wicker wastebasket that had a sort of billowy plastic lining.

It moved with us two times, and though I didn’t love that the wide rim made it impossible to line it with a trash bag (meaning that when gum was tossed in there, it would stick to the plastic lining… nasty!), I kept it because I never throw out something that is perfectly passably doing its job. Well, it was—at least in theory—doing its job, because every week while celebrating Garbage Eve (the night before the garbage collector comes and we empty all our indoor garbage cans), I would inevitably find evidence of well-intentioned but missed free throws of all sort of detritus: spent floss, errant nail trimmings, and the occasional stray cotton swab. I found myself silently fuming at my husband for believing too firmly in either his aim or the wideness of the wastebasket’s opening and sending his biohazardous waste on a wing and a prayer in what can only be described as the general vicinity of that old basket.

Read More >>