India, Oct. 17 -- Clearing out a cupboard the other day, I discovered a shelf full of empty tins I'd forgotten about. As I piled them up with a growing sense of alarm, I realised they were just the tip of the iceberg. I'd picked up that habit that had always confused me as a child: the saving of all things, from bags and boxes to tins.

Tell me, truthfully, hand on heart, if you too are guilty of this.

Nobody ever threw away a perfectly good tin when I was growing up. Round biscuit tins seemed destined to be sewing kits; somehow, every home had one full of needles and thread, hooks, pins and buttons. Indeed, I think there was a time in the '90s when there would have been genuine confusion if we'd cracked open one of these and been confro...