In the Works - Community Newsletter In the Works April 2017 | Page 35

Public Works, in partnership
with Mayor Ed Lee and District
9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen,
rolled out the Yes We Can! pilot
program in the Mission District
this month to make more public
trash cans available. The goal:
Reduce litter.
The City installed an additional
38 garbage cans along the
Mission Street corridor between
14th and Cesar Chavez streets,
for a total of 73 cans. We will
track – through 311 service
requests and on-site evaluations
– whether the additional
receptacles result in less litter
and fewer complaints. Yes
We Can! will expand to other
neighborhoods if the Mission
Street experiment proves
successful.
While it may seem
counterintuitive, past experience
has found that garbage cans
actually can add to the litter
problem when scavengers
rummage through them and
scatter the unwanted trash on
the sidewalk. The street cans also
can become magnets for illegal
dumping when people place
their household or business
trash in and around them
instead of paying for the legally
required refuse pickup at their
properties.
Because of the problems, the
City removed more than 1,000
public trash cans from the
sidewalks a decade ago. There
now are some 3,200 sidewalk
cans.
Our aim with Yes We Can! is to
find the sweet spot that provides
more places for people to
dispose of their trash properly,
while not adding to the litter
problem with people using the
cans inappropriately.
April 2017 - San Francisco Public Works Newsletter