• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Gucci garbage: San Francisco approves $20K designer trash cans

Slaylock

Member

San Francisco is hoping to replace the long despised green trash cans littered throughout the city, as its board of supervisors voted Wednesday to approve using new designer prototype bins.​

However, there’s a catch: Each new can will cost between $12,000 and $20,000, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.​

"$20,000 a can is ridiculous," Supervisor Matt Haney told the paper after reluctantly agreeing to the proposal.
The pilot program involves 15 newly designed trash cans that will be placed throughout San Francisco from November, 2021 to January, 2022. After that, San Francisco Public Works hopes to mass produce the new bins, which should cheapen the cost, the Chronicle said.
There are three different newly designed "smart" cans used in the program called the following: "Salt and Pepper", "Slim Silhouette" and "Soft Square."
They were designed to complement the design of "the new JCDecaux public toilets" located throughout the city and they are "outfitted with sensors that send alerts when they’re nearing capacity so they can be emptied before they overflow," San Francisco Public Works said in a release last year.
The old green bins have long been loathed by many San Franciscans for how easily they overflow onto the streets. They also have become an easy target for looting due to their easily broken locks, as scavengers "rummage through them and leave behind a mess."
Public Works is asking to approve spending $537,000 from $840,000 on reserve for the project, most of which is due to the design cost of the new bins. The agency said they had to use new models rather than existing designs from other cities because those bins are either too wide for San Francisco streets or have large openings people can reach through.
The city will also try a few previously designed models from other cities as part of the pilot program.
"Our streets and our sidewalks are a mess and the cans we have out there now are actually part of the problem," Haney said. "At this point they’ve already come up with designs, we won’t save time now to go backwards, but it’s really frustrating that they chose this route."
Unknown-49d21355-d486-45f5-b09d-fd8cbb7c26a2.jpg
503208900861cf56e9cf7k-f40188ec-100d-467f-bc6f-ee991953c403.jpg
50320327398ab80f18528k-8dd6033d-6556-4c55-a9ca-dfa15bc803c2.jpg
 
Last edited:

Cyberpunkd

Member
Isn't this California? home of the homeless, where every state ships the homeless, and homeless mobs roam about because they refuse to increase housing for the poor rather they live on the streets? While paying $200,000 so workers pick up human feces and needles from the streets?
When I was in SF in 2017 I was shocked when people told me there is a district - Tenderloin - in the fucking middle of the city right next to Market Street you are not supposed to venture into. I was like - WTF. That's like making Champs-Elysees in Paris a drug den.
 

NoviDon

Member
Hmm, what should we do with all these piles of money we got? Get the homeless of the street and rehabilitated? Get kids three meals a day and a proper education? Invest in technology to curb the affects of heat waves and water shortages? Nah, pretty trash dispensers are number one priority!
 

Fbh

Member
Never been there but I imagine the city must be amazing if they have solved every major problem, which allows them start throwing away money on overpriced tash cans.
 
Last edited:

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Leave it to government projects to go 30000% over actual costs. Why? Because fuck taxpayer money, that's why.
Thats government for ya.

As we all know, they are the worst at negotiating costs. Every supplier just tosses out a stupid bid number and the numb nuts in gov have zero sense and just do it.

But hey, when you got bottomless pockets where no debt is too big, you can add another zero to the price of the trash can and still not care.

I wonder what budget and cost meetings are like in gov. I know what it's like in private sector corporations.
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Meanwhile, the streets still have the same potholes of over five years ago. Fuck that city man.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
This. This a million fucking times. Why the fuck would I pay taxes to a city that does shit like this? Its like spitting in the face of every single taxpayer in your city.
Because government can just pass policies that increase taxes knowing 99% of people who hate what the local politicians are doing simply cant or wont move because they are settled in with a family, job and home.

In private sector (buying shit at a store or hiring contractors to renovate your house) everyone can pick and choose where to go, shop around and if something looks like a rip off, you can steer clear. If you need a new fridge, you pick what you want. If gov supplied everyone's fridge, you might get something reasonable. Or they can force everyone to take Miele appliances for big bucks. If gov passes a 1% tax increase, how many people will actually pack up and leave for a different city, state or province?
 
Last edited:

Azurro

Banned
Just...how? How do they managed to be so inefficient that just one of those garbage cans costs 20,000? I understand corruption, but even then, wtf?

When I was in SF in 2017 I was shocked when people told me there is a district - Tenderloin - in the fucking middle of the city right next to Market Street you are not supposed to venture into. I was like - WTF. That's like making Champs-Elysees in Paris a drug den.

Well, France solved that problem by turning the entirety of Paris into a shitty place. :D
 

StormCell

Member
That's simply just a disgusting use of tax dollars.

For many, many people living near the poverty line, San Francisco trash cans cost more than their homes... Let it sink in. The city of San Francisco does not care about its homeless citizens.
 

Blond

Banned
When I was in SF in 2017 I was shocked when people told me there is a district - Tenderloin - in the fucking middle of the city right next to Market Street you are not supposed to venture into. I was like - WTF. That's like making Champs-Elysees in Paris a drug den.
Went to the TL recently and it’s somehow gotten even worse. There at least use to be pockets where it wasn’t bad but that’s not the case anymore, it fells like something you saw in escape from New York…
 

MrMephistoX

Member
Went to the TL recently and it’s somehow gotten even worse. There at least use to be pockets where it wasn’t bad but that’s not the case anymore, it fells like something you saw in escape from New York…
I can vouch for this having worked in DTSF pre COVID The Tenderloin is like a mini skid row but even market street is pretty fucking bad with homeless shooting up everywhwere and the perpetual smell of piss and weed. Manhattan is Valhalla by comparison. It’s sad too because architecturally and visually SF is a gorgeous city by the bay…I’m very concerned my home town Portland is headed that way in less than 10 years.
 

Winter John

Gold Member
I got a buddy who lives out in Marin County. He was on the phone earlier losing his shit over this. I don’t agree with much of what he says. Guy’s a diehard Republican with a head full of nonsense but he’s right on this one. My first thought when I saw them bins was I’d steal one, and I’m a law abiding citizen. So yeah, odds are they ain’t going to be around for long.
 
Remember shit like this the next time California comes begging Big Daddy Fed for a bailout.

It might seem funny, but you pay for this every time you go to the grocery store and see the purchasing power of your income plummet.
 
Remember shit like this the next time California comes begging Big Daddy Fed for a bailout.

It might seem funny, but you pay for this every time you go to the grocery store and see the purchasing power of your income plummet.
Southern states come begging every single fucking year with their hands held open asking for daddy gubmints to fund their states in perpetuity. So fuck off with this shit.
 
Top Bottom