EDITORIAL: San Francisco to pay $20,000 for trash cans

Everything seems more expensive in San Francisco. That includes the garbage cans.

Last month, a committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors moved forward on a proposal to pay between $12,000 and $20,000 for new trash cans. Per can. In other parts of the country, a city might spend that much money on a new vehicle.

One reason for the sticker shock is that these garbage bins are prototypes. If San Francisco decides to mass-produce them, the price could drop to between $2,000 and $3,000 each.

That raises an obvious question: Why does San Francisco need to design new ones? Trash cans are hardly a new invention. Every city across the country uses them. San Francisco itself already has thousands of them.

But city officials have long bemoaned the current green garbage cans. Some officials think they’re ugly. A more practical problem is that they are frequently overflowing. Garbage on the streets attracts rats, which is hardly a selling point in favor of city living.

But, of course, the problem is self-inflicted. In 2007 then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom decided to get rid of around one-third of the city’s trash cans. He argued that eliminating around 1,600 receptacles would reduce the amount of trash left on the street. Mr. Newsom believed garbage cans attracted more trash by signaling to people that they were places to throw away household waste.

Alas, this exercise in progressive logic didn’t work out as intended. Fewer trash cans simply meant that the remaining bins filled up much quicker, leading to increased litter and overflowing receptacles. Combine that with human feces and used needles. San Francisco is a mess.

San Francisco officials say their current trash cans are too easy to break into. This allows people to dig through the garbage looking for cans to recycle or other items. This can cause even properly disposed of trash to end up strewn across the sidewalk.

City officials insist these new designs offer greater security and are more visually appealing, even if the price is eye-popping. One suspects that most city residents would find a trash can of any style more appealing than mounds of trash. Amazingly, this saga has dragged on for years. The city started the process of designing new garbage cans in 2018.

Keeping the streets clean is a basic function of local government. San Francisco can’t do that, but it certainly is proficient at wasting money.