Garbage and recycling bins in Montreal.Marcus Gee/The Globe and Mail
If you were in Montreal this spring, you might have seen a man of a certain age loitering in the streets and parks of downtown, taking pictures of garbage cans with his cell phone. Confession: Dear readers, that was me.
For the past few years, I’ve become fascinated – my travel companions would say obsessed – with how public trash cans look and function. Wherever I go, I take photos of the good ones I see and add them to an iCloud folder called (cleverly) “Bins.” It now includes examples from London, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Lisbon, Los Angeles and, yes, Montreal.
The question that bothers me is: Why are the trash cans in my hometown of Toronto so substandard? If all these other cities can figure out how to collect trash without spoiling the cityscape, why can’t we?
Garbage and recycling bins in Montreal.Marcus Gee/The Globe and Mail
The trash cans in Toronto’s parks are an atrocity. A few years ago, some genius in the parks department decided that it would be easier to collect trash if it were placed in rolling plastic bins that homeowners put out on the curb once a week. Then the garbage men could just come by and mechanically dump the bins into their vehicles.
Today, the bins (dark grey for garbage, blue for recyclables) are in almost all of our parks, tied to metal posts like hostages in a thriller. They look horrific, standing amidst the green lawns, gardens and playgrounds of a typical Toronto public park.
Garbage and recycling bins in Toronto.Marcus Gee/The Globe and Mail
They just look ridiculous in the specialty parks that have sprung up all over the city in the last few decades. The city spent millions hiring fancy architects and landscapers to create an edgy, creative, more urban park, only to ruin the effect with trash cans.
The garbage cans on Toronto’s streets are also a scandal. A few years ago, the city signed a contract with a large company that supplied it with “street furniture” such as bus stops and garbage cans. In return, it received the right to sell advertising.
The poorly designed bins soon began to fall apart. Residents posted pictures of broken and overflowing bins on sidewalks. A new generation of bins is much better – slimmer and sturdier. The city plans to install 1,000 of them in densely populated areas by the end of the year. But why it took so long is a mystery.
No one would say that bad trash cans are the city’s biggest problem—not even me. But when it comes to making a place functional and livable, it’s the little things that matter. Trash cans are one of those things—fountains and toilets in parks are others—that Toronto just can’t seem to get right.
Based on my in-depth amateur study, the trash cans in Montreal are much better. In a park I visited this spring, the trash cans are simple round buckets, like old trash cans, but covered in a warm light wood panel. Beautiful.
The sturdy and stylish trash cans on Madrid’s sidewalks bear the city’s coat of arms. The pretty forest green ones in Queen’s Park in London look as if they could stop a tank.
Garbage and recycling bins in Madrid.Marcus Gee/The Globe and Mail
The bustling Portuguese city of Porto has an ingenious answer to the problem of constantly overflowing garbage cans. They are emptied into large underground garbage containers. Garbage trucks come by regularly to empty them. The sidewalk folds up like a hatch cover and hey presto, the garbage is gone.
In a town I visited in southern Spain, a trash can for soda cans and water bottles is shaped like a giant purple heart. In Portland, Oregon, colorful works by local artists decorate many trash cans on the sidewalks.
Some cities even use solar-powered trash cans. Because they break down the trash, they don’t need to be emptied as often.
Garbage can in Queen’s Park in London.Marcus Gee/The Globe and Mail
Toronto is trying to catch up. The city is taking a bold step into the 21st century and wants to experiment with special sensors that tell garbage collectors when garbage cans are full. The system will be tested on 250 garbage cans as part of the “garbage can sensor pilot program” to take place this year. For some reason, I’m not optimistic.
Maybe one day we’ll fill the trash can gap that the rest of the world has. In the meantime, I’m going to try to relax and stop taking pictures of every cool trash can I see everywhere I go. Maybe I’ll even take a few snaps of castles and fountains instead. Wish me luck.
