Van Fendyan (right) says the a new trash can at Geary Boulevard and Divisadero Street “looks like a little robot — like R2D2.”
Tourists visiting San Francisco this summer will probably place riding cable cars, visiting Alcatraz and strolling through Golden Gate Park on their agenda. Locals might want to try a new, grittier, smellier itinerary: the San Francisco Trash Can Tour.
The city’s Department of Public Works famously decided no city in the world had ever placed a trash can on its sidewalks that would meet San Francisco’s exacting standards and designed three bespoke, wildly expensive prototypes just for us. It took nearly four years and $550,000 to get this far, but now they need our help.
They’re testing the fancy prototypes and three everyday, off-the-shelf varieties at locations around the city for the next two months. They want people to use their online maps to find the cans, test them out and use QR codes plastered on the sides to tell the department what they think.
With residents’ input, the department will settle on the winner. The idea is that more than 3,000 of them will land on city sidewalks sometime in 2023 in what must be the most complicated purchase of a trash can in human history.
A QR code seeks feedback on a new trash can at Geary Boulevard and Divisadero Street.
I did a little legwork for the department and visited six cans in six neighborhoods to see how they’re holding up and get the opinions — there were plenty — of passersby.
“It looks like a little robot — like R2D2,” harrumphed Van Fendyan of the Salt & Pepper can at Geary Boulevard and Divisadero Street. That’s the relatively cheap prototype, priced at a mere $11,000, though when the prototypes are manufactured in large numbers, their costs should sink to $2,000 to $3,000.
Barbara Jones was similarly unimpressed.
“It’s ugly,” she said. “It looks like a space capsule.”
Many people thought the new cans looked like something from outer space, but the Salt & Pepper can is so named because it resembles a giant, silver salt and pepper shaker. This one had trash scattered around it, including several beer bottles that didn’t make it into the separated top portion for recycling.
Penn Barbosa says of the Salt & Pepper model: “It’s not that big a deal.”
Lindsay Haddix praised its separate recycling section and sturdiness, but said it was so odd looking, she wouldn’t know it was a trash can from down the block. She rated it a 7 out of 10.
Penn Barbosa shrugged at the Salt & Pepper. “It’s not that big a deal,” she said.
Told it actually was a pretty big deal — worth $11,000 and the product of four years of work — Barbosa gave me a quizzical look. “What do they know that I don’t know?”
She said the money would be better used on people, particularly those suffering mental health crises in our streets, than on trash cans.
Not far away, the Slim Silhouette sat outside Books Inc. on California Street. No, it’s not a pair of jeans from J. Crew — it’s the second-most expensive prototype at $18,800 apiece. One woman said it looked like a big space heater — and she wasn’t wrong — but Carlos Herrera was a fan.
“Wow! Wow!” he said, taking a spin around the receptacle. “It’s a good improvement. I hope people use them correctly.”
But Kenneth Sigua didn’t get the hype.
“I think it’s just a trash can,” said the bookseller.
Lindsay Haddix praises the durability and recycling compartment of a new trash can at Geary Boulevard and Divisadero Street.
Told it was not just any old trash can, but a $18,800 trash can, his eyes widened, and he said, “Shut up!”
The San Francisco Trash Can Tour
For information on San Francisco's trash can prototypes and a map to find the cans, visit sfpublicworks.org/trashcanpilot.
“I could make a trash can for less,” he said. “Give me $600.”
The third and final prototype — and the most expensive at $20,900 — is the Soft Square. Assembly Member Matt Haney, D-San Francisco, said he saw one in Mission Bay that already had its locked door flung open, but the one I visited at Plymouth and Ocean Avenues was still in good shape.
Nikolai Sheikman, who was waiting there for a bus ride home, said the can was futuristic and “kind of cool,” but gasped at the price-tag.
“I don’t know if it should be the city’s priority at the moment,” he said.
“Definitely the housing crisis,” said Sheikman, who’s just 18 but seems more sensible than some City Hall officials.
As of late Wednesday, people had turned in 83 trash can surveys, which are available in five languages. Beth Rubenstein, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Works, said it would be “foolhardy” to choose the city’s new trash can without getting feedback on the cans’ looks, shape, size of opening, ease of use and whether there’s much trash around them. The city’s current cans are infamous for spilling trash.
Rubenstein said the department will launch a social media campaign, discuss the cans at Manny’s on Tuesday, and maybe even design scavenger hunts to get more feedback. She vowed that if the public overwhelmingly likes an off-the-shelf model, that’s what the city will choose.
A woman peers into a new trash can at Geary Boulevard and Divisadero Street.
So what are those off-the-shelf trash cans like? And are they really a lot worse than the pricey protoypes? I visited one of each of those, too. One big difference is the off-the-shelf models don’t have a separate recycling area.
The Ren Bin is a big, dark metal box with an opening in the front for trash and costs a little less than $3,000. I found one at 24th Street and Potrero Avenue, and it already had graffiti on it and a weird stench emanating from the opening. I don’t know what was inside, but it wasn’t good.
Mohammad Aljawobaei, a clerk at a liquor store there, said the smell is bad for his business and he’d like the can moved down the block.
The wire mesh is the simplest model — just your standard can with a hole in the top. The one at Portola Drive and O’Shaughnessy Boulevard already had graffiti on it, but so did the adjacent bus stop and sidewalk. It cost $630.
Nelson Talamaival said he’d heard about the pricey, fancy cans on the news and preferred a basic, cheaper model like the wire mesh. He said the city should spend its money on filling potholes instead.
The Bear Saver can, which I saw at Fifth and Mission Streets, looks like a cheaper Big Belly can with a sturdy, metal, boxy frame and a small door with a handle to place trash inside. It costs $1,950, and a recycling compartment can be added to the side. It can also be decorated with vinyl graphic design elements.
Jessica Mauricio was a fan. “It works. It’s good,” she said. “It doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb.”
From my San Francisco Trash Can Tour, I’d rate the Salt and Pepper as the best prototype, mostly because it costs so much less than the others, but also because I like its modern look. I’d like to see what it would cost to make 3,000 of them. If that figure is still too high, the Bear Saver would do just fine as long as the recycling component came with it.
Here’s hoping we have effective, affordable trash cans on our streets soon — and that city officials then turn to putting as much time and effort into solving our far bigger problems.
Heather Knight is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf
Heather Knight is a columnist working out of City Hall and covering everything from politics to homelessness to family flight and the quirks of living in one of the most fascinating cities in the world. She believes in holding politicians accountable for their decisions or, often, lack thereof - and telling the stories of real people and their struggles.
She co-hosts the Chronicle's TotalSF podcast and co-founded its #TotalSF program to celebrate the wonder and whimsy of San Francisco.