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

sfchronicle.com

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

#11

Post by klyrs »

TFA only seems to have pictures of the one trash can.

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.

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

#12

Post by bleah1000 »

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.

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

#13

Post by nradov »

m0llusk wrote: post #8

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.

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

#14

Post by atwood22 »

mindslight wrote: post #5
cwkoss wrote: post #2

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 f…

> 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…

> 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.

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

#15

Post by atwood22 »

sometimesjerks wrote: post #10
dogline wrote: post #3

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 considere…

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-c... ): - Durable: they can't be easily damaged due to physical force, r…

I think this list of requirements ignores the fact that plenty of other cities have trash cans that fulfill their purpose.

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

#16

Post by Someone »

sometimesjerks wrote: post #10
dogline wrote: post #3

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 considere…

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-c... ): - Durable: they can't be easily damaged due to physical force, r…

https://missionlocal.org/2021/09/san-francisco-garbage-can-d... mentions a similar list:

Rubenstein from Public Works explained that in 2018, the department could not find a trash can that fulfilled an exacting list of features: a rolling inside can for easy emptying, a sensor to alert workers when a can is full, durability to withstand street life, and be tamper-proof.

And “obviously,” she added, “they needed to be aesthetic.”

It also hints at fraud, but I’m not sure that plays a big role in the eventual costs of these trash cans. As you mention, those “Bigbelly” cans aren’t cheaper ($3,900 a piece, according to that link, so about what these will end up costing)

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

#17

Post by jerlam »

nradov wrote: post #13
m0llusk wrote: post #8

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.

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/Ci...

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

#18

Post by mindslight »

atwood22 wrote: post #14
mindslight wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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…

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.

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

#19

Post by atwood22 »

mindslight wrote: post #18
atwood22 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

> 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.

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

#20

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

atwood22 wrote: post #14
mindslight wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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…

> If the U.S. still had a strong manufacturing base

What's this "if?" I've worked my entire 30+ year engineering career for companies that manufactured things. From the 6-person company I started at to the $4bn corporation that owned 80% of their market, they've all been based on making things.

There's nothing wrong with the US manufacturing base. We just don't focus on low-margin consumer goods. Even the company I worked at which also did consumer electronics, farmed that part of their manufacturing to Viet Nam. Higher margin stuff was built here.

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