EDINBURGH.- Heriot-Watt University presents an exhibit of trash cans from Disney World. Visitors to Disney World in Florida are invited to buy Disney Pins to mark each park and venue they’ve visited. Fashion design specialist Mark Timmins was more taken with Disney’s rubbish bins, and has now put together a photographic exhibition featuring the range of rubbish receptacles featured around the site.

“The bins are all a standard shape and size,” said Mark, Fashion and Textiles Director at Heriot-Watt University’s School of Textiles and Design, “but each one is decorated differently to fit in with its surroundings, from the bins in the Magic Kingdom, decorated with Tinkerbell, to the Animal Kingdom, which are brown and feature the words ‘Waste please Maholo’ which is Hawaiian for thank you.

“My personal favourite is the twin-bins from ToonTown, also part of the Magic Kingdom, which are decorated with the mops from the Sorcerer’s apprentice section of Fantasia, and the message ‘keep it clean.’”

And, he insists, the exhibition isn’t rubbish, it is art, or at least an important facet of design in the 21st century. “It’s all to do with repeated images and the concept of mass customisation. In a way it’s the complete opposite of Ford’s idea of ‘any colour as long as it’s black, while at the same time paying homage to his seminal ideas on mass production.

“More than that I wanted to look at the whole concept of rubbish and disposability in what must be the best recognised physical expression of western consumer-society. Plus, lets face it, it makes a change from the usual run of holiday snaps, even if it may not be much more alluring for friends invited round for an evening’s viewing”.

And in fact the Timmins’ family holiday was far from being all rubbish as his six and a half year old daughter was chosen as the day’s ‘Princess’, picked from the crowd to ride in Cinderella’s magic coach at the head of the daily parade. “Sixteen million people a year visit Disney World,” said Mark, “and only three hundred and sixty five of them get a chance to lead the procession. How great is that?”

The ‘Disney Bins’ exhibition will be on display at The Create Centre, an environmental and recycling centre in Bristol, from 16th to 30th of May.

It can also be simultaneously viewed at Heriot-Watt University’s new Energy Academy at the Edinburgh Campus from the 16th to the 30th of May.