A garden gets cleared daily or it gets cleared once a fortnight in a mood, and which of those happens comes down almost entirely to where the scoop lives. Something light that folds flat and hangs by the back door gets picked up on the way past. Something long and awkward goes in the shed behind the mower and stays there, which is how people end up doing the whole lawn at once on a Sunday.

This is the compact one: a plastic clip that folds down small, listed by the manufacturer as the medium household model. The clip mechanism closes on waste and lifts it straight off grass or paving into a bag, one-handed, with nothing to assemble. It hoses clean and dries in minutes, and at a listed 195g it is light enough for a child to be given the job. Five colours are made, which sounds trivial until you want a second one in the car boot that you can tell apart from the garden one.

• Plastic construction
• Clip-style jaw
• Folds down for storage
• Manufacturer's range covers blue, black, purple, pink and green
• Supplied as one clip
• 195g listed weight

On reach: the manufacturer describes this as the medium household model and publishes no handle length, so be clear with yourself about what you need. If bending is the problem you are solving, this is the wrong tool and our folding long-handled scoop with its stated 80cm reach is the right one.

Who it's for: owners of small and medium dogs doing a quick daily sweep of a garden or yard, and anyone who wants a cheap second scoop for the car rather than one expensive one that is always in the wrong place.