things to learn from Paris #3
Remember this story? Mon dieu! You don’t have to spend $1010 on a trash can.
I love the pragmatic simplicity of Parisian trash cans. A short steel post, with a ring at the top, bolted to the sidewalk with a plate. The bag is held in place by an enormous, sturdy, bungee cord.
Get a local manufacturer to make these and I’ll bet they won’t cost much more than $50 a piece. In Paris, you don’t have to walk much further than a block or two to find one. They don’t take up much space, and the bag is simple to replace.
When did we start to believe that trash needed an architectural masterpiece to house it? Admittedly, this solution was born as a safety measure, after trash cans became a great hiding place for bombs. I love this solution. Bombs can’t hide in clear plastic bags.
Bring it on!
Tags: city, design, environment, other cities
April 22nd, 2010 at 6:34 am
The city of Madison, WI has some ugly, plastic public street trash cans. I was in the midst of making fun of them when the friend I was visiting informed me that they are the kind the arm on the side of the garbage truck can pick up and empty. With a set-up like that, I bet emptying them takes a quarter of the man hours that our current set-up does (open the $1,000 trash can, pull out the actual trash can, lift to empty in the truck, replace).