JUST ABOUT NOW they drop through the letterbox with page after page of what my granny calls “cupboard-backers”, most of them made of plastic. The Lakeland Limited catalogue is a cornucopia of plastic thingamajigs. “Wood-effect castor cups” spare your floor from spiteful chairs. “Reusable dryerballs” promise to soften clothes “naturally”, and the Tube Master is for misers who want to squeeze out every last bit of toothpaste. But plastic does not have to be like this. Designed well, plastic can be fantastic.

“It’s one of the most versatile materials you can use in your home,” says Oliver Heath, the designer from Changing Rooms and Home Front. “I use it wherever I can, as it’s so durable and easy to clean.” At his home in Brighton, Heath has used plastic for objects such as place mats, kitchen units and furniture.

“My worktops are made from recycled plastic which is shredded into tiny pieces, then pressurised together. You couldn’t create this effect any other way.” This eco-material is called SnowFlake and is proving that plastic does not need to hurt the planet; it is made from white squeezy-bottle pieces suspended in a tough, translucent plastic. Supplied in sheets, it can be cut to fit any space.

Smile Plastics, the company that developed SnowFlake, also mould it into furniture. It requires little maintenance, but abrasive cleaners and very hot pots should be avoided. Plastic can be pretty, affordable — and not fit for landfill. It offers material benefits beyond being bendy, as it also lends a pearly quality to light. “Plastic lampshades work very well to create a duller, more atmospheric light,” says Heath. “But you do have to use plastic that is highly heat-resistant.”

The Pier stocks two lovely plastic lights; the globe shade, available in purple or red, is covered in tiny beads and would look great in a bedroom and is just £24.95. The Crystal Shower shade is much more dramatic — and at £34.95 it is cheaper than real crystal but does not look it.

When plastic invaded the design scene in the 1960s, the Space Race was frantic and psychedelia was all the rage. The era gave the material a futuristic feel and designers cannot resist harking back to this heyday. HAL A2 is a big clear plastic box from Habitat: filled with nearly 400 tiny multicoloured bulbs, it suggests intelligence. You cannot change the bulbs, but as they last 20,000 hours you will not need to. An obvious homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL costs an earthly £110.

Being eminently malleable, plastic lends itself to novelty items. These are mostly dreadful — the usually excellent Italian design factory Alessi has dropped its guard here. Its Gino Zucchino sugar pourer is fun and colourful and, most importantly, works, as does the Diabolix Bottle Opener. But the Merdolino toilet brush has to go, as does the kitchen-roll holder featuring a bunny and a carrot. Both deserve to be melted.

The Voodoo knife holder, right, from Firebox, is a killer. Designed by Raffaele Iannello and crafted in blood-red plastic, it is daring and useful. You can stab five knives into the little man and he will not so much as complain: cutting-edge design for £59.95 — or, of course, you could go for a dull block of reclaimed olive wood.

Plastic furniture is not, on the whole, comfortable. The Louis Ghost chair, by Philippe Starck on the Design-Conscious website, is a classic Baroque shape in clear plastic. It looks stunning — but can you sit on it for more than five minutes? No. The same goes for Starck’s Eros swivel chair. Objects — not people — sit comfortably on plastic.

The Jolly side table, by Paolo Rizzatto, is made of one single moulded sheet of transparent plastic. Available in light yellow, sunset orange, crystal green, ice blue or smoke grey, it costs just £64 and, being plastic, it can happily live outside. Ron Arad’s Bookworm shelf, also on the Design-Conscious website, is a classic. The original is wood, but the new version comes in colourful plastics and different sizes. Starting at £166 for 3 metres, you can bend it to your own design: the more curvaceous it is, the stronger it will be.

“Plastic is a genius material,” says Heath. Just make sure you use it with care.

www.lakelandlimited.co.uk

www.smile-plastics.co.uk

www.pier.co.uk

www.firebox.com

www.design-conscious.co.uk

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