Trash cans never seemed so polarizing.
Last week, $20,000 trash can prototypes for San Francisco were unveiled, which city officials were considering deploying.
Now the price has been cut almost in half after lots of pushback from city leaders and the public.
On Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors agreed to let Public Works spend $12,000 apiece, not $20,000, to create and test 15 prototypes.
When mass-produced, the cost per can will drop to an estimated $2,000 to $3,000, a total of $400,000.
The goal of the new cans is simple: keep the trash inside. Now, the issue is people go digging through the garbage looking for food or recyclables, and leave everything else spilled on streets and sidewalks.
"Now there were some that met one option or two, but we could not find anything that could check all of those boxes," said Department of Public Works Acting Director Alaric Degrafinreid.
The new trash cans will also include wireless sensors to inform public works when they're getting full.
The goal is to eventually replace the roughly 3,000 existing green bins around the city. Those cans often let trash spill over onto the street, and have been in place since the early 90s.
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