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?
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?".
- 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
- 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 (!!!).
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
[+] [-] cwkoss|3 years ago|reply
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|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] bleah1000|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] klyrs|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] klyrs|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] hobo_in_library|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] metadat|3 years ago|reply
https://archive.ph/LC3PF/87a04d67bf1d6574004d2f931dc1085afe8...
I didn't realize this article was more than 10 months old.
[+] [-] dogline|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sometimesjerks|3 years ago|reply
Here's a list of the requirements of these trashcans, mostly taken from here (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-...)
- 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 (!!!).
[+] [-] syspec|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m0llusk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nradov|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nuodag|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] FerretFred|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] iancmceachern|3 years ago|reply