11 ms·

I reviewed the $20k trash cans SF is testing. Here’s what I found

14 points by crhulls 4y ago

cwkoss 4y ago
US citizens need to start feeling embarassed that we can no longer manufacture simple objects cost efficiently. These trash cans should cost $1k max. I wonder if this cost discrepancy is due to pork or too many middle managers. Not even sure why the trash can needs a redesign. Will this increased cost ever give an ROI over a long enough enough time span? Or will some other bureaucrat decide they need to make a name for themselves by redesigning the trashcan in 15 years, and these will all end up in the landfill?
- mindslight 4y ago
  > I wonder if this cost discrepancy is due to pork or too many middle managers. The cost "discrepancy" is due to cheap offshored mass manufacturing for most everything consumers buy, plus social media validating uninformed off-the-cuff opinions. $11,000 is about a month of a welder plus designer. Is it terribly hard to imagine that the process of building a prototype with a few refinements would take $11,000 worth of time? Frankly, based on experience with the cost of engineering time, that seems like a tiny project. FTA: > When mass-produced, the cost per can will drop to an estimated $2,000 to $3,000. Keep in mind this is still likely using small-run domestic labor, which is "costly" (ie economically sustainable). Tractor implements have similar simplicity, similar inputs (metal plus welding), and finished good prices are similar. If anything, US citizens need to be embarrassed that we've allowed our society to be hollowed out by disposable mass-produced crap and policy-deliberate inflation.
  - atwood22 4y ago
    > When mass-produced, the cost per can will drop to an estimated $2,000 to $3,000. I'm sorry, but that is still embarrassing. If the U.S. still had a strong manufacturing base, these things would be trivial to produce cheaply. To start with, certain aspects of the design would be simplified to allow for easier production. Operations and tooling engineers could help with that process, but we barely have any engineers left with the required speciality. Next you'd find someone that can stamp out the blanks from sheet metal. But of course we don't have many places that deal with a lot of sheet metal and have the ability to retool cost effectively. In China, there are thousands of such places.
    - mindslight 4y ago
      Sure, I went on to address why that is. US labor is expensive, because our currency has been continually hollowed out by the deliberate government policy that prices must always go up, despite continual technological and economic progress trying to make things less expensive. The real cost of producing consumer goods has dropped through the floor, yet nominal prices are a bit higher than they were. Meanwhile domestic labor, and everything depending on domestic labor, has shot through the roof due to this policy. And as labor gets more expensive, even more manufacturing leaves. Employing individuals is cost prohibitive for other individuals (eg calling a plumber costs too damn much), which causes further centralization of the economy where only big business is able to stomach the cost of doing business (they're also well connected to the supply of newly printed money). Also I would be surprised if relatively small runs of long lasting municipal fixtures could be "stamped out from sheet metal". This seems to be a bias towards disposable consumer crap talking.
      - atwood22 4y ago
        > Sure, I went on to address exactly why that is. US labor is expensive, because our currency has been continually hollowed out by the deliberate government policy that prices must always go up, despite continual technological and economic progress trying to make things less expensive. Sorry, what policy is that? Are you talking about how the Federal Reserve targets 2% inflation? Every country does that. It's important that nominal prices increase. Otherwise, people just old on to their money and the economy slows down. If that's not the government policy you're talking about, or if you have an example of a country without inflation targets, I would like to see it. > Also I would be surprised if relatively small runs of long lasting municipal fixtures could be "stamped out from sheet metal". This seems to be a bias towards disposable consumer crap talking. Sheet metal is an amazing material. It lets a company focus on producing a high quality steel without worrying about how every consumer downstream will consume it. It also allows for highly efficient shape forming and stamping. The fins on the garbage can almost certain come from sheet metal. Airplanes and cars are made with sheet metal. It's probably one of the most important materials in modern manufacturing.
        4y ago
  - cwkoss 4y ago
    I'm not sure if the article clarified, but I was under the impression the $11-20k was the incremental cost per unit. They said the whole project has spent $550,000. Hopefully they got more than 3 trashcan prototypes and a QR code to an online survey for that.
  - prirun 4y ago
    It didn't cost $11K to design and build a prototype. According to the article: "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."
dogline 4y ago
With the assumption that there are smart people involved who thought this was a good idea -- The article really doesn't go into detail what's new here. Looks like it's trying to be graffiti-proof, perhaps other ways to be easy to maintain. Lots of things like this aren't always obvious. If you said it's $10-20k for a trash can (well, they did), that sounds silly, but there should be a reason these are being considered.
- syspec 4y ago
  I don't know if I'd call it graffiti proof. It looks more as if, when graffiti gets onto the fins it will be impossible to remove.
  - jshzglr 4y ago
    Looks like an opportunity for some abstract graffiti that looks different depending on your angle. This is stupid. The people of San Fran should be reimbursed the million dollars this cost. By who, I don't know.
  - anonAndOn 4y ago
    The fins are actually kind of brilliant. Looks like it will hamper both paint markers and knife scratchers. The spray painters will just have to be painted over, though. Two out of three ain't bad!
  - floxy 4y ago
    OT, but has anyone ever studied what motivates graffiti producers? I assume it is a mix of teenage boredom / rebelliousness and gang territory signifiers, but I would be interested in reading more about it. I'm more interested learning about the motivation for the "scribbles" form, rather than the more artist versions.
- sometimesjerks 4y ago
  I think this is a really interesting topic because there's a surprising amount of consideration that needs to go into something like this. Most people think "oh, a trashcan, how hard can it be to design one?". Here's a list of the requirements of these trashcans, mostly taken from here (https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/san-francisco-trash-cans-17309914.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/san-francisco-trash-c...): - Durable: they can't be easily damaged due to physical force, rain, UV exposure, or even fire (if someone throws out a lit cigarette). These cans are expected to last 15-20 years - They also shouldn't be easy to tip over - They must be difficult for people and animals to get into - They must be easy for public works to empty. The inner can can't be too heavy or not robust enough to contain the trash (32 gallons) - The opening can't be too big to prevent people dumping large items into it - These cans will also indicate when they're full via optical sensor (https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/27/san-franciscos-trash-bins-get-smart/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/27/san-franciscos-trash-...) - They should look somewhat appealing (they're designed in Oakland). - They must meet certain size restrictions due to the various widths of sidewalks in SF - It must also have a recycling container on top that meets most of the above requirements of "people can't reach inside here" In terms of "why are they so expensive": these cans are one-off prototypes. When they're mass produced, they will only be a bit more than the existing green cans ($1,218 vs $2,000) but with the goal of being much more durable and robust. Additionally, they're much less expensive than the "Bigbelly" cans that the city supervisors wanted to use. Fun fact: the city doesn't actually own those cans and they cost $3,000 per year to lease (!!!).
m0llusk 4y ago
These are not $20k trash cans. The program is designing and producing prototypes. This is because various designs tried so far have had significant problems. How much mass produced final designs might cost is not yet known.
- nradov 4y ago
  Those "problems" are not real problems worth wasting money on. Regular trash cans used in other cities are cheap and work fine. SF city leadership is just dysfunctional and over complicating things as usual.
  - jerlam 4y ago
    The main competitor for these trash cans is the BigBelly, which cost $3,000 a year to lease. They've already been deployed in some parts of SF and surrounding cities. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/City-has-little-love-for-Bigbelly-bins-13309542.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Ci...
    - iancmceachern 4y ago
      Not true. The main competitor is a regular dumb trash can you can buy from home depot for $50. Edited to say $50 not $10 per below comment.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - mindslight 4y ago
        ^ Perfect demonstration of the bikeshed effect. You could have looked at some commercial supply catalogs and seen that trash cans used by businesses cost significantly more. You could have searched around and found that businesses and other institutions have significant costs for installation, maintenance, tracking, abuse, environmental factors, etc that require more substantial solutions to mitigate. Instead, I'll summarize that into this rebuttal comment, and I may even convince you that a $10 trash can that goes next to your toilet [0] won't work as a city trash can. But it won't stop the next person from posting the exact same type of anti-enlightening comment and thinking it's insightful. [0] These days it's $50 for a 44 gallon Brute, which will still get stolen or tip over in the wind.
klyrs 4y ago
TFA only seems to have pictures of the one trash can. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Inside-the-secret-studio-where-S-F-s-12-000-16409622.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article... These designs are all bad. The recycling space is uselessly small. The middle one won't accept an empty takeout container. The one on the right has moving parts that people need to touch to use. Most people don't want to touch a damned trashcan downtown, what are you even thinking?! People are focused on the price, but that's the least of my concerns. All three prioritize form over function. But yeah, the bar & slat designs are needlessly many pieces that require a lot of damned work.
- metadat 4y ago
  Direct link to image: https://archive.ph/LC3PF/87a04d67bf1d6574004d2f931dc1085afe851b37.jpg https://archive.ph/LC3PF/87a04d67bf1d6574004d2f931dc1085afe8... I didn't realize this article was more than 10 months old.
- hobo_in_library 4y ago
  Just imagine how much work those slats will be to keep clean!
- klyrs 4y ago
  Self-reply after some consideration. It looks like the one on the right is foot-operated, which is cool for people of average height and two feet. I smell an ADA lawsuit, but at least most people wouldn't need to touch it with their hands. But it will encourage people to throw out their returnables, which leads to the question "why do so many people rifle the trash?" In the Vancouver area, trash cans have a little ledge where you're supposed to put returnables. From what I can tell, there's a pretty high rate of participation. It keeps the valuables out of the trash, and it simplifies collection. I guess it flies in the face of the American culture of security and authority, but it's a simple fix that takes people's actual motivation into account and addresses it there. Because, unless those cans are guarded 24/7, somebody is going to figure out how to quickly jimmy them open and that knowledge will disseminate quickly.
bleah1000 4y ago
I don't know if the garbage can is good, but I found the last picture with the new garbage can in the foreground and a ton of garbage behind the can on the ground funny. This article is not very good, because it doesn't say what they are trying to do with the garbage cans. Is it making them harder to be damaged? To make it so people use the cans instead of throwing the garbage on the ground? To make it easy to service? I would guess, the primary purpose is so they aren't damaged, but who knows.
iancmceachern 4y ago
They should sell ads on the trash cans to street furniture companies and then the trash cans would be free, or profitable for the city.
FerretFred 4y ago
> US citizens need to start feeling embarassed that we can no longer manufacture simple objects cost efficiently UK citizens need to start feeling embarrassed that we can no longer manufacture simple objects. Period. We buy all our crap from China. I'm so ashamed.
nuodag 4y ago
Berlin also had a trash problem. But it got better when they decided to standardise on a really cheap bright orange trashcan and really flooded the town with those. You see them everywhere in the city, and especially in inner city you might see 15, so whatever you have in your hand the easiest is to just step to the bright orange thing and throw it inside. Before usually they had also metal ones that needed construction to mount in the ground, those current ones the trash workers can just metal ziptie to lampposts and if one breaks they have a new one in their car.

14 points by crhulls 4y ago

US citizens need to start feeling embarassed that we can no longer manufacture simple objects cost efficiently. These trash cans should cost $1k max. I wonder if this cost discrepancy is due to pork or too many middle managers. Not even sure why the trash can needs a redesign. Will this increased cost ever give an ROI over a long enough enough time span? Or will some other bureaucrat decide they need to make a name for themselves by redesigning the trashcan in 15 years, and these will all end up in the landfill?

mindslight 4y ago
> I wonder if this cost discrepancy is due to pork or too many middle managers. The cost "discrepancy" is due to cheap offshored mass manufacturing for most everything consumers buy, plus social media validating uninformed off-the-cuff opinions. $11,000 is about a month of a welder plus designer. Is it terribly hard to imagine that the process of building a prototype with a few refinements would take $11,000 worth of time? Frankly, based on experience with the cost of engineering time, that seems like a tiny project. FTA: > When mass-produced, the cost per can will drop to an estimated $2,000 to $3,000. Keep in mind this is still likely using small-run domestic labor, which is "costly" (ie economically sustainable). Tractor implements have similar simplicity, similar inputs (metal plus welding), and finished good prices are similar. If anything, US citizens need to be embarrassed that we've allowed our society to be hollowed out by disposable mass-produced crap and policy-deliberate inflation.
- atwood22 4y ago
  > When mass-produced, the cost per can will drop to an estimated $2,000 to $3,000. I'm sorry, but that is still embarrassing. If the U.S. still had a strong manufacturing base, these things would be trivial to produce cheaply. To start with, certain aspects of the design would be simplified to allow for easier production. Operations and tooling engineers could help with that process, but we barely have any engineers left with the required speciality. Next you'd find someone that can stamp out the blanks from sheet metal. But of course we don't have many places that deal with a lot of sheet metal and have the ability to retool cost effectively. In China, there are thousands of such places.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    Sure, I went on to address why that is. US labor is expensive, because our currency has been continually hollowed out by the deliberate government policy that prices must always go up, despite continual technological and economic progress trying to make things less expensive. The real cost of producing consumer goods has dropped through the floor, yet nominal prices are a bit higher than they were. Meanwhile domestic labor, and everything depending on domestic labor, has shot through the roof due to this policy. And as labor gets more expensive, even more manufacturing leaves. Employing individuals is cost prohibitive for other individuals (eg calling a plumber costs too damn much), which causes further centralization of the economy where only big business is able to stomach the cost of doing business (they're also well connected to the supply of newly printed money). Also I would be surprised if relatively small runs of long lasting municipal fixtures could be "stamped out from sheet metal". This seems to be a bias towards disposable consumer crap talking.
    - atwood22 4y ago
      > Sure, I went on to address exactly why that is. US labor is expensive, because our currency has been continually hollowed out by the deliberate government policy that prices must always go up, despite continual technological and economic progress trying to make things less expensive. Sorry, what policy is that? Are you talking about how the Federal Reserve targets 2% inflation? Every country does that. It's important that nominal prices increase. Otherwise, people just old on to their money and the economy slows down. If that's not the government policy you're talking about, or if you have an example of a country without inflation targets, I would like to see it. > Also I would be surprised if relatively small runs of long lasting municipal fixtures could be "stamped out from sheet metal". This seems to be a bias towards disposable consumer crap talking. Sheet metal is an amazing material. It lets a company focus on producing a high quality steel without worrying about how every consumer downstream will consume it. It also allows for highly efficient shape forming and stamping. The fins on the garbage can almost certain come from sheet metal. Airplanes and cars are made with sheet metal. It's probably one of the most important materials in modern manufacturing.
      - 4y ago
- cwkoss 4y ago
  I'm not sure if the article clarified, but I was under the impression the $11-20k was the incremental cost per unit. They said the whole project has spent $550,000. Hopefully they got more than 3 trashcan prototypes and a QR code to an online survey for that.
- prirun 4y ago
  It didn't cost $11K to design and build a prototype. According to the article: "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."

dogline 4y ago

With the assumption that there are smart people involved who thought this was a good idea -- The article really doesn't go into detail what's new here. Looks like it's trying to be graffiti-proof, perhaps other ways to be easy to maintain. Lots of things like this aren't always obvious. If you said it's $10-20k for a trash can (well, they did), that sounds silly, but there should be a reason these are being considered.

syspec 4y ago
I don't know if I'd call it graffiti proof. It looks more as if, when graffiti gets onto the fins it will be impossible to remove.
- jshzglr 4y ago
  Looks like an opportunity for some abstract graffiti that looks different depending on your angle. This is stupid. The people of San Fran should be reimbursed the million dollars this cost. By who, I don't know.
- anonAndOn 4y ago
  The fins are actually kind of brilliant. Looks like it will hamper both paint markers and knife scratchers. The spray painters will just have to be painted over, though. Two out of three ain't bad!
- floxy 4y ago
  OT, but has anyone ever studied what motivates graffiti producers? I assume it is a mix of teenage boredom / rebelliousness and gang territory signifiers, but I would be interested in reading more about it. I'm more interested learning about the motivation for the "scribbles" form, rather than the more artist versions.
sometimesjerks 4y ago
I think this is a really interesting topic because there's a surprising amount of consideration that needs to go into something like this. Most people think "oh, a trashcan, how hard can it be to design one?". Here's a list of the requirements of these trashcans, mostly taken from here (https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/san-francisco-trash-cans-17309914.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/san-francisco-trash-c...): - Durable: they can't be easily damaged due to physical force, rain, UV exposure, or even fire (if someone throws out a lit cigarette). These cans are expected to last 15-20 years - They also shouldn't be easy to tip over - They must be difficult for people and animals to get into - They must be easy for public works to empty. The inner can can't be too heavy or not robust enough to contain the trash (32 gallons) - The opening can't be too big to prevent people dumping large items into it - These cans will also indicate when they're full via optical sensor (https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/27/san-franciscos-trash-bins-get-smart/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/27/san-franciscos-trash-...) - They should look somewhat appealing (they're designed in Oakland). - They must meet certain size restrictions due to the various widths of sidewalks in SF - It must also have a recycling container on top that meets most of the above requirements of "people can't reach inside here" In terms of "why are they so expensive": these cans are one-off prototypes. When they're mass produced, they will only be a bit more than the existing green cans ($1,218 vs $2,000) but with the goal of being much more durable and robust. Additionally, they're much less expensive than the "Bigbelly" cans that the city supervisors wanted to use. Fun fact: the city doesn't actually own those cans and they cost $3,000 per year to lease (!!!).

m0llusk 4y ago

These are not $20k trash cans. The program is designing and producing prototypes. This is because various designs tried so far have had significant problems. How much mass produced final designs might cost is not yet known.

nradov 4y ago
Those "problems" are not real problems worth wasting money on. Regular trash cans used in other cities are cheap and work fine. SF city leadership is just dysfunctional and over complicating things as usual.
- jerlam 4y ago
  The main competitor for these trash cans is the BigBelly, which cost $3,000 a year to lease. They've already been deployed in some parts of SF and surrounding cities. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/City-has-little-love-for-Bigbelly-bins-13309542.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Ci...
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    Not true. The main competitor is a regular dumb trash can you can buy from home depot for $50. Edited to say $50 not $10 per below comment.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - mindslight 4y ago
      ^ Perfect demonstration of the bikeshed effect. You could have looked at some commercial supply catalogs and seen that trash cans used by businesses cost significantly more. You could have searched around and found that businesses and other institutions have significant costs for installation, maintenance, tracking, abuse, environmental factors, etc that require more substantial solutions to mitigate. Instead, I'll summarize that into this rebuttal comment, and I may even convince you that a $10 trash can that goes next to your toilet [0] won't work as a city trash can. But it won't stop the next person from posting the exact same type of anti-enlightening comment and thinking it's insightful. [0] These days it's $50 for a 44 gallon Brute, which will still get stolen or tip over in the wind.

klyrs 4y ago

TFA only seems to have pictures of the one trash can. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Inside-the-secret-studio-where-S-F-s-12-000-16409622.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article... These designs are all bad. The recycling space is uselessly small. The middle one won't accept an empty takeout container. The one on the right has moving parts that people need to touch to use. Most people don't want to touch a damned trashcan downtown, what are you even thinking?! People are focused on the price, but that's the least of my concerns. All three prioritize form over function. But yeah, the bar & slat designs are needlessly many pieces that require a lot of damned work.

metadat 4y ago
Direct link to image: https://archive.ph/LC3PF/87a04d67bf1d6574004d2f931dc1085afe851b37.jpg https://archive.ph/LC3PF/87a04d67bf1d6574004d2f931dc1085afe8... I didn't realize this article was more than 10 months old.
hobo_in_library 4y ago
Just imagine how much work those slats will be to keep clean!
klyrs 4y ago
Self-reply after some consideration. It looks like the one on the right is foot-operated, which is cool for people of average height and two feet. I smell an ADA lawsuit, but at least most people wouldn't need to touch it with their hands. But it will encourage people to throw out their returnables, which leads to the question "why do so many people rifle the trash?" In the Vancouver area, trash cans have a little ledge where you're supposed to put returnables. From what I can tell, there's a pretty high rate of participation. It keeps the valuables out of the trash, and it simplifies collection. I guess it flies in the face of the American culture of security and authority, but it's a simple fix that takes people's actual motivation into account and addresses it there. Because, unless those cans are guarded 24/7, somebody is going to figure out how to quickly jimmy them open and that knowledge will disseminate quickly.

bleah1000 4y ago

I don't know if the garbage can is good, but I found the last picture with the new garbage can in the foreground and a ton of garbage behind the can on the ground funny. This article is not very good, because it doesn't say what they are trying to do with the garbage cans. Is it making them harder to be damaged? To make it so people use the cans instead of throwing the garbage on the ground? To make it easy to service? I would guess, the primary purpose is so they aren't damaged, but who knows.

iancmceachern 4y ago

They should sell ads on the trash cans to street furniture companies and then the trash cans would be free, or profitable for the city.

FerretFred 4y ago

> US citizens need to start feeling embarassed that we can no longer manufacture simple objects cost efficiently UK citizens need to start feeling embarrassed that we can no longer manufacture simple objects. Period. We buy all our crap from China. I'm so ashamed.

nuodag 4y ago

Berlin also had a trash problem. But it got better when they decided to standardise on a really cheap bright orange trashcan and really flooded the town with those. You see them everywhere in the city, and especially in inner city you might see 15, so whatever you have in your hand the easiest is to just step to the bright orange thing and throw it inside. Before usually they had also metal ones that needed construction to mount in the ground, those current ones the trash workers can just metal ziptie to lampposts and if one breaks they have a new one in their car.