Our cousins over the pond have many funny ideas. They play cricket weirdly in some sort of square formation. They prefer drinking hot drinks made from beans, of all things, instead of dry leaves like normal people. And they set some unusual Presidents… or should that be precedents? The latest example of cross-continental strangeness comes to us from the lovely city of San Francisco, where a three-and-a-half year programme of renewal that has so far cost over $550,000 is coming to a head. Shortly, a momentous decision must be made that will change the face of the streets for ever.

So what is this grand endeavour? What have they spent almost four years diligently working away at? It’s bins. Simple, honest bins. Or ‘trash cans’, to slip into the American vernacular for a second. Public rubbish disposal falls under the intellectual and aesthetic purview of the San Francisco Department of Public Works, and a few years ago the Department decided that to help clean up the streets, the old green models were a bit of a waste of space.

To replace them, they started a process to come up with a bin that was “beautiful, long-lasting and tamper-proof, and has a separate recycling component, a rolling mechanism to get them more easily to garbage trucks and a sensor to tell workers when they’re getting full”. Truly a rubbish bin fit for Frisco. Part of the reason the process has taken so long has been, according to a Spokesperson for the Department of Works, the need for a transparent process, something that will be familiar to British consultors as a core element of consultation.

Having decided that they will need new bins, all off-the-shelf models have been rejected as unsuitable, and having commissioned three prototypes costing between $11,000-$20,000, they’re now being rolled out over the city for public comment. Like all good consultors, they’re also testing alternatives, some of the off the shelf models that had previously been dismissed. The bins are distributed all over the city (there’s a map if you happen to be in that direction and have a burning urge to find one), and for sixty days citizens will be able to use a QR code to comment on their favourite.

Despite not being anywhere near San Francisco, using clever internet sorcery* we’ve had a quick look at the survey. It’s a relatively simple survey, mostly framed around multiple choice questions (including the wonderful “What’s your overall impression of the trash can?” which we feel sure in the UK would draw “I’m sorry I don’t do impressions” gags from local wags). It does have a firm commitment though to equality, being available in the top five most spoken languages in the city. There was also a public event back in July where eager debris fans could go along to a local community centre to discuss the latest in scrap developments.

Naturally, journalists have been having endless fun reviewing the bins, and the public seem so far to be giving a mixed reception. The exercise itself actually seems pretty good, so perhaps we shouldn’t be such refuse-niks, but we can’t help but feel that a similar exercise in the UK that cost half a million pounds and took over four years would be given short shrift by a cynical public. If nothing else, our more sardonic mindsets might make hay with the idea of a city that felt the need to distinguish itself at such cost by its bins. The ridicule would be absolute…

For our transatlantic colleagues charged with undertaking the public engagement on this- we like what we see. We’ll keep an eye out for more of your projects- and we’re sorry for calling this one rubbish. It was just too good a gag to miss.

* Finding a picture of one of the prototype bins online and using the QR code