In Search Of The Perfect Washing Basket – A Rant!!

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Now you don’t often have the pleasure of reading a rant on this blog, so please enjoy this one to the max.

Laundry baskets!!!

They are so crap, they fall apart so fast, they’re utter rubbish – why do we bother??!!

In the council cleanup a few weeks ago I FINALLY got rid of a couple of classic white plastic washing baskets whose days had been done a long time before.

Those rotten rigid useless baskets which you can buy from the supermarkets are so bad… and so emblematic of a buy-cheap-crap-throw-away-very-soon culture which drives me demented.

We have tiles outside where we hang the washing. The baskets get dropped down onto the tiles a lot and the bottoms tend to shatter.  They need to toughen up!

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Here’s the one plastic one I have left, with a cracked top and lost handgrip. Grrrr….

‘That’s it,’ I yelled to my sister ‘I’m never buying those again!!’

‘How about cane baskets?’ said she.

‘But they’ll just break too,’ quoth I.

‘True,’ she said, ‘but they will last longer and they’re biodegradable.’

So lucky for me, I found a big cane basket at the same council cleanup, washed it and set it to work.

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And I use a cane basket for the dirty washing too.

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Harumph!

So there I was grumpily, banging my baskets around the laundry… when… I found an Australian collapsible laundry basket.. that lasts!

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Here it is, I’m in love with a collapsible washing basket. It’s the best laundry basket I’ve ever owned.

I can drop it on the tiles as much as I like, and it just bounces back.

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So I’ve set it to work alongside the other laundry baskets.

Now all I need is a washing fairy!

 

Being a ruthless investigative laundry reporter, I tracked the washing basket down. It’s designed in Australia and made by Companion Brands. \

Anaconda and Tentworld.com.au sell these baskets.

They are expensive, around $50. I just checked the Coles website and a white plastic one costs $4.76… but I know which I’d rather have. I bought a couple more for myself over the months in fast.

And I even bought one of these super cool laundry tubs.

Laundry tub

2019 Update

Well these laundry basket lasted really well for five years but now are sagging a bit.  We are still using them fine but they do not sit up as they used to. I gave two to my sons when they moved out but found another similar one for myself in Aldi for about $30 and it’s great. But you can never rely on Aldi to have more!

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The 2019 Aldi laundry basket, I wish I had bought two!!

Would you spend $49 on a laundry basket?

Do you go for long lasting quality over cheap short-lasting quantity?

Do your laundry baskets drive you mad… or just the laundry itself?

Any washing fairies are your house?

Happy washing!

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21 Comments

  1. Well since I actually go camping I could probably justify the cost of the special camping basket. It looks great and would be easy to store too because it’s not so big.

    I wouldn’t use it camping though as I don’t do laundry on my hols which is fab until I get home. That’s when I’d need that 10kg panasonic washing machine. I think my front loader handles 7kg which was the biggest I could find at the time but with 3 kids (and I know you have 4!) my washing machine can never be big enough. Especially after camping holidays when there are endless muddly clothes and bedding to wash.

    I need a washing fairy. But in the meantime I just keep trying to get the kids to recylcle their clothes more. Sometimes they just chuck something in the wash because it’s the easiest thing to do. Bad children!

    1. says: Seana Smith

      My kids do just the same… and I sometimes just fold the clothes and put them back… actually more unusually I fling them onto their beds… they’re either not dirty at all or FILTHY!!!

  2. says: Mairi Stones

    Hi Seana
    The collapsable one looks great and if it bounces, fab, but just to check out, is the plastic recyclable, when it finally does reach it’s end of life? Also I just use a garden plastic trug, it’s heavy duty plastic, not rigid, and it has handles too. X

  3. No, not $49 but I get you on the cheap Chinese ones breaking. Think of the resources that have gone into those baskets to land them here in Australia. What a waste and then for them to just create land fill.

    I am using cane one too and so far it has lasted for ages.
    Carolyn

    1. says: Seana Smith

      I wish I had talked to you about this a long time ago. I threw two out and have that one broken one left. But yes $49 for that groovy bucket one is steep.

  4. says: Seana Smith

    Well, generally a leave on the line girl myself… occasionally don’t use them at all then regret it. I have some with no metal bits, single piece of plastic and they’re the best… these things matter, even to the non-domestically-minded.

  5. says: robert pytellek

    I own lovely stainless steel pegs. Made from 318 stainless. So they stay on the line. Not cheap, but I should never need to replace them.

  6. says: Mark

    Just went searching for a laundry basket that is made in Australia and stumbled across this post. Thanks for sharing your rant Seana. We have a Sabco laundry basket that is plastic and must be nearly 20 years old. It has outlasted another 12 baskets in its lifetime. They don’t seem to make them anymore, however I have just contacted Sabco and asked if they could start making them again. Here are a couple of photos. Seana where did you get the circular laundry tub from?

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fkwrNGy4RmMmCo6LXeJeFEE_Sm-H6uQB/view?usp=sharing
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vB3bck2aeate6PId0bIkgxrwW_SGp776/view?usp=sharing

    Thanks Mark

    1. says: Seana Smith

      I think I got the cane one at an op shop years ago, not ideal for wet laundry though so now we just use it as a dirty clothes basket. Thanks for the tip on Sabco.

    2. says: Geoff

      I have been looking today for laundry baskets and the only one that hasn’t broke in our house is the same Sabco basket you photographed. Great basket, great strength and recyclable. I hope they start making them again.

  7. says: Brett

    I had been eyeing off collapsible baskets for a while and finally took the plunge, late last year, and bought 3 of them from the Coles specials rack (maybe $30 each from memory). We love them, BUT, in the 6 or so months we’ve had them, all have started to tear in multiple places between the hard plastic bits and the flexible rubber joints (which is thinner there so it’s easier for the rubber to bend). One basket is now barely holding on for dear life.

    I was thinking about drilling holes in the middle plastic part and lacing the top to the middle to the bottom by lacing nylon rope between the different sections. BUT, that’s a lot of work and I think they are already beyond repair. So I’ve just bought a Boxsweden branded basket off Amazon. I chose it because it only has hard plastic at the top and at the bottom (no middle section) so there’s only 2 rubber-to-plastic joints (compared to 4 with my current baskets) to potentially fail. If the Boxsweden basket goes well, I’ll get more of them.

    I’ll also have to talk to the family about how they are expanding them. I think there may have been some heavy-handedness used (eg. thumping the bottom outwards into its expansion), which would have compromised the weakest points (the hinges).

    1. says: Seana Smith

      Hello, I haven’t used the Coles ones but I have bought a couple from Aldi and they are lasting well. Our Hills Hoist is on grass and our floor is vinyl so they don’t ever get dropped on really hard surfaces.

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