The Plasticware Centre (which may or may not be “Payless”), has been a K Road fixture for years, lurking in the basement of the HB building on the corner of Mercury Lane.

But, sadly, a sign has appeared recently advising customers that the shop is closing down. One more piece of old K Road is going.

It’s not your average plastics shop. It feels like that at one point it may have been quite ordinary - perhaps at some stage in the ’70s, when Newton was a dying, working class suburb, decimated by the newfangled motorway and trying to find itself again. Back then, people needed to be able to buy cheap plastic goods, cos they surely couldn’t afford anything pricey.

Even though the Plasticware Centre gets plenty of light from the Mercury Lane side windows, it still feels a bit damp and dodgy, but that just adds to the charm.

What I like best about the Plasticware Centre is that some of the stock appears to be decades old. I found a set of kitchen scales just like the ones I grew up with. My mum bought those in the ’70s. I could buy a “new” pair from the Plasticware Centre if I wanted.

If you were wanting to deck out your kitchen in a ’70s or ’80s retro style, forget Iko Iko - the Plasticware Centre has all your needs, including a ye olde spice rack full of spices that probably aren’t so spicy anymore.

There’s 10% off everything now, and stuff is pretty cheap there anyway, so there are sure to be bargains to be had. It’s worth a bit of an explore anyway, just to enjoy its quirky character.

UPDATE: I made another trip to the strange K Road plastics shop today.

• A starter spice rack filled with a selection of commonly used spices - yours for $39.95. This isn’t so unusual, but the spices were King brand - a brand that hasn’t graced supermarket shelves for years and years. Perhaps a good buy for people who don’t like their spice racks to be at all spicy.
• You know that grotty flat you used to live in? The one that was really cold in winter and the toilet didn’t stop flushing? And remember how all the drawers in the kitchen were lined with that adhesive vinyl with the garish 1970s-style brown flower pattern? Well, you can recreate that look at a mere $2.50 a metre.
• Now, I don’t know all that much about retail, but I imagine in an average shop, someone looks at the stock and figures out which stuff has been sitting on the shelf unsold, and then that stuff gets put on sale. And if it still hasn’t sold, then you sell it to someone like Geoff’s Emporium. But the Plasticware Centre seems to never discount non-selling stock. In fact, it’s almost as if they keep putting up the prices of the old stuff to keep up with inflation.

What a strange shop. I’ll miss it.