Here’s How San Francisco’s ‘Favorite’ New Trash Can Looks After a Night on the Gin
Written by Joe BurnPublished Sep. 13, 2022 • 11:15am
City Hall
This is how San Francisco’s most favored trash can looks on Tuesday morning, a night after the current survey results of a city-wide pilot scheme were released via public records request. The can appears to have been celebrating by cutting loose with a bottle of Seagrams Gin. The Slim Silhouette prototype model is pictured at Market St and Van Ness Ave. | Joe Burn/The Standard
Monday brought the city a peek behind the aluminum curtain, as survey results from the ongoing trash can replacement race were revealed by Mission Local.
The public has spoken and, so far, they’ve chosen the “Slim Silhouette” model as the favorite.
The can is pictured here on Tuesday morning, with an empty bottle of gin by its side, missing innards, doors flung wide open and accompanied by what appear to be its friends—a shopping cart, E-scooter and an older model trash can.
Perhaps it spent the night on Market and Van Ness celebrating with friends because the trash-can-crown is within its grasp. Perhaps it was vandalism that saw it lose its inner-can component—its reason for being, if you will.
The other most-favored can so far is the “Salt & Pepper”—both models reaped around 30 percent of positive feedback according to Mission Local’s records request to the Department of Public Works, who are running the scheme.
As yet, The Standard hasn’t seen a Salt & Pepper can in quite the same state as its drunken competitor. But we’re accepting submissions.
Both of these prototype models are currently beating out the off-the-shelf competitors in terms of positive feedback, but the Bearsaver off-the-shelf model is the runner-up behind the tied prototype models.
The 60-day pilot ends Sunday and features three concept cans and three off-the-shelf varieties—costing between $11,000 and $20,900.
San Franciscans have been given the chance to have their say on the new cans by way of a QR code stuck to each one. The department will review the feedback and choose a final design.
Public Works has not yet responded to a request for comment on the state of this particular trash can.
Once mass-produced, the cost per trash can drops significantly to between $2,000 and $3,000. Public Works doesn’t know how long it will take to see the 3,000 new cans on the street once the pilot ends.
The department has so far spent almost four years and more than $550,000 on the pilot that it hopes will help rid the city’s streets of garbage.
Joe Burn can be reached at [email protected]
