Garbage Cans with Removable Bottoms

I think it is safe to assume that most people use garbage bags in their kitchen garbage cans.

However, when throwing away heaver items, or when the can is full, it can be hard to remove the bag. The bag can be hard to lift out of the can either due to its weight or just being stuck.

This is not a show stopping problem by any means. I will also admit that a little bit of forethought can avoid the problem. However there is a solution.

If kitchen trash cans were constructed with removable bottoms the can could be lifted up over the bag. The mechanism for making the bottom removable is not critically important. There are any number of ways to create one. In fact is surprises me that I have not seen a garbage can like this before.

Such a trash can could make trash removal easier for those who have physical difficulty lifting a bag out of a can due to an infirmity. It also means one other important thing. Cleaning a garbage can would be as simple as popping off the bottom and running it through a dishwasher.

It's not a major problem, but the solution is trivially easy.

Removable Microwave Panels

Microwaves are great. But inevitably they will get dirty. Over time food will splatter over the interior and eventually coat it in unappetizing crud.

There are covers that one can use for their food to prevent the splatter. These are not necessarily 100% and also require you to actually use the cover. Of course even if you are fastidious in their use, you also need to convince anyone else that uses the microwave that they are a good idea.

Cleaning a microwave is a unpleasant task. Ignoring, for the moment, the unpleasantness of the crud it is difficult. It requires scrubbing surfaces at uncomfortable angles. It can be really quite tiring in fact.

However, it would not be difficult at all to make it such that the interior plastic walls of the microwave were removable. It would be a simple task to design them such that they just snapped into place and came out just as easily.

When they were dirty an owner could remove them and just stick them into their dishwasher. They would want to avoid microwaving until they put the panels back (to avoid dirtying the interior surfaces. But that is a small price to pay to avoid having to clean it by hand.

This would not require people to change their habits (as a cover does), but yet it allows for the microwave to be kept clean. I can think of virtually no drawbacks other than a slight increase in microwave cost. It wouldn't be foolproof of course. If you spilled something in the microwave, it could get between the panels and coat the interior surface (requiring you to clean the thing by hand). But it would keep splatter at bay.

Now many people may not care about the cleanliness of their microwave. However, I suspect those people are not looking too closely when their microwave is dirty.

Electronic Tupperware

Tupperware has not changed much over the years, but it could be a lot better.

For me Tupperware has two problems. One, at times it can be difficult to know/remember what is inside the Tupperware (especially if you were not the one to 'pack' it), and two, it's easy to loose track of how old the contents are.

My idea is to have Tupperware lids with a slot to 'clip on' cheap LCD displays. The displays themselves do not need to be anything fancy. Really they just need to be capable of showing a single line of text.

A consumer would purchase a 'keyboard' when they first invest in the Tupperware. The keyboard/keypad would be magnetic and could stick onto a fridge. There would be a slot where the displays could plug in. When a display is plugged in, the consumer simply needs to enter in the label they would like to be displayed. To make things more convenient the keypad would automatically append the date to the label.

Simply by looking into the fridge a hungry person could know what was in each container and how old the stuff was.

The displays, when not in use, would dock with the keyboard and would likely be magnetic themselves. The keypad would then charge the batteries that power the displays. As for how the keypad gets this power itself? Perhaps it could be charged off of batteries as well, or integrated into high-end fridges and just draw power from the mains.

The amount of engineering to create such a product would be minimal. Ultimately the key would be in marketing it. But to me at least, this product is useful enough that all you would need to do is let people know it exists.

UV Sponge Holder

This idea is actually inspired by yesterday's post (and a conversation I had a few days ago).

One of the filthiest places in the kitchen is the sponge. Sponges remain damp and cool after use, making them the perfect breeding place for bacteria. Not only do they tend to be filled with bacteria but a lot of the bacteria can be potentially dangerous bacteria.

This idea is for a small tray designed to hold the sponge when not in use. The tray would have a lid, that when closed would make the tray enter into a cleaning sequence. Two things would occur in this sequence.

1) The sponge would be bathed in UV light to try to kill bacteria on the surface of the sponge. While the UV light would not be able to sterilize the core of the sponge the less bacteria on the sponge the better.

2) The holder would heat up and 'bake' the sponge. The temperatures would not increase too high to avoid being a safety hazard, but they would increase enough to allow the sponge to dry out faster. The less time a sponge is sitting around wet, the less time it is serving as a fertile breeding ground.

Now a simpler answer is to throw out your sponges and replace them regularly. However, this tends to happen once the sponge begins to look nasty. Well, by the time it takes on a grimy and filthy appearance it has already been spreading germs for some time.

Once again, rather than trying to change human behavior, it is easier to adapt technology to behavior. If sponges are going to be sitting around, they might as well be getting cleaned.

UV Dishwasher

I was brushing my teeth when I was reminded of those UV toothbrush cleaners.

Basically they bathe toothbrushes in UV radiation to kill bacteria.

That got me to thinking, why not have dishwashers do the same thing.

Of course you would still want it to go through the traditional wash cycles. Soap and water would still be needed to remove caked on crud. However after the standard cycle is done it could go through a ten minute UV bath. You would know that not only have your dishes been cleaned, they have also been irradiated.

It's not necessary to get a clean dish, but then again it isn't necessary to get a clean tooth brush either. However, it would increase the level of cleanliness.

It would likely require a redesign of the rack layout in order to make sure all of the dishes could be adequately exposed. A design preventing people from placing dishes too close together could likely do the trick. But this would not be a bad idea anyway as it would improve the efficiency of the general wash cycle as well. Certainly the capacity is being reduced, but it simply means people will get into the habit of running loads slightly more frequently.

This also seems like an easily marketable idea.

Not everyone would care about such a design, but there are probably enough people who would to make it worth while.