"Is this all real? Or has this been happening inside my head?" The topic of this article is of a real-life subject that has been mentioned "in-universe" in a canon source. The Harry Potter Wiki is written from the perspective that all information presented in canon is true (e.g., Hogwarts really exists), and, as such, details contained in this article may differ from real world facts.

"I've never seen a worse Keeper... but then he was born in a bin." —Draco Malfoy, needling Harry Potter about Ron Weasley's Keeper performance[src]

A bin is receptacle for the disposal of waste material.

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History

The entrance area to Diagon Alley included a dustbin.[1]

Early in the 1991-1992 school year, Peeves chucked some chalk into a bin after Professor Minerva McGonagall discovered him in a classroom using it to write rude words on a blackboard.[2]

In 1994, Alastor Moody owned a number of dustbins which he kept outside his home.[3] Bartemius Crouch Jr used magic to make them fire rubbish everywhere as a cover for his kidnapping of Moody to disguise himself as Moody using Polyjuice Potion.[4]

In 1995, Draco Malfoy composed a song titled "Weasley is Our King" as an attempt to undermine the morale of Gryffindor Quidditch team Keeper Ronald Weasley and that of the team itself. The song included the line "Weasley was born in a bin," considered highly offensive, as it suggested he was nothing but rubbish.[5] Later that same year, Augusta Longbottom told her grandson Neville to place a gum wrapper given to him by his mother in the bin at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.[6]

In 1997, as Hermione Granger considered what books to bring along on the mission to find Voldemort's Horcruxes, she tossed her copy of Defensive Magical Theory into the bin without a second glance.[7]

Bin Juice is named after this object.[8]

After receiving a letter from Lily Evans about the birth of Harry, Petunia Dursley tossed it in the bin without a second glance.[9]

In "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot", one of the classic stories from The Tales of Beedle the Bard , the wizard who inherited his father's titular pot initially decided to use it as a bin, but the pot did not allow him rest until he used it for its original purpose of helping his Muggle neighbours, as did his father.[10]

Bins were amongst objects transfigured by a group of goblins who had gotten hold of wands during the Chipping Clodbury riot.[11]

Behind the scenes

In addition to a rubbish bin appearing on the J. K. Rowling Official Site prior to its April 2012 redesign, the site featured a Rubbish Bin section where rumours about her and the Harry Potter series were addressed.

series were addressed. In the United States, the term "bin" is usually used in regards to waste only in relation to recycling, i.e. "recycle bin." Despite this, the term was retained for the U.S. editions of most Harry Potter titles, though the U.S. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone refers to a "trash can."

Appearances