Trashing The Trash Cans, Not The Mayor.

Let me get this straight. I’m telling you that my “soul’ blogging motivation is promoting clean, safe streets. Yet, I’m condoning the removal of 400 trash cans from our City streets by a mayor who also claims to be an advocate of clean, safe streets.

[Insert a shot of Jägermeister]

I guess the flip-flop from the dramedy bound San Francisco Regressives to the bigger-office, bigger-picture Conservatives has prepared me well for City Hall’s latest agony and irony. Anymore vaults, summersalts and deep knee bends... and my girlfriend will be rendered obsolete.

Having acknowledged this preposterous juxtaposition, let me assure you that it’s not so grim and not so confusing. While the Mayor and I aim to reduce garbage cans, we also remain steadfast to our pledge to reduce refuse. Rather, we are simply insisting local business pitch in. In other words, "give a hoot, pay some loot!"

[Insert a shot of Religion]

Gavin Newsom announced, San Francisco has more trash cans per person than other big cities — 64 per 10,000 residents. Having so many spaced at regular intervals encourages businesses and residents to use the receptacles for their bags of everyday garbage, instead of paying for garbage service.

“I’m still pro-garbage can, we just had too many. We want there to be room in the garbage cans, and there’s often not. They’re overflowing because other residents are using them inappropriately.”

Newsom also said fast-food restaurants and other companies needed to do more to help solve San Francisco’s trash problems, listing the following brand names most often found littered about San Francisco’s streets:

• McDonalds


• Muni (transfers)


• Burger King


• Starbucks


• Safeway


• FedEx


• Jack in the Box

“These are our targets. We called all those fast-food restaurants and now we’re sitting down … to say, ‘you guys have got to step up.’”

Newsom added that the top generic street nuisance is gum, making up nearly 40 percent of all small litter citywide. The information was a result of a $25,000 city litter study that surveyed approximately 100 sites across The City that were randomly chosen. It found, on average, about 36 pieces of litter per 200-foot-long site. Newsom pledged to cut that number in half over the next five years.

The Examiner: S.F. to kick garbage cans to the curb by Bonnie Eslinger.