They're here! Monster Garbage Cans. Taller than you. Covered in ads.

It's official. Stick a stake in them, Monster Bins are dead. On Tuesday June 27, 2006 City Council voted not to accept Eucan's proposal which would have meant thousands of MegaBins and "EcoBoxes" across the city. Thanks to all our volunteers for all their hard work, and to our supporters and allies, especially Councillors Janet Davis and Paula Fletcher. We won! GETTING RID OF THE REMAINS: UPDATE: August 2006: EUCAN DRAGGING ITS FEET As for the 80-odd bins that remain from the "3 month pilot," the city intended to leave them in place - with advertising - for next few years until the coordinated street furniture deal is complete, Councillor Janet Davis introduced our amendment, which allows any councillor to request to have the "test" bins removed from their ward. But surprise! Eucan is not cooperating. Councillors who agreed to have Eucan bins in their wards for a 3-month test period are still stuck with them more than a year after installation. Eucan is contractually obligated to remove Eucan bins if the local councillor so desires. They must replace them with Silver Bins if there was one there previously (about half the test bins), or remove the bins and repair the sidewalk where there wasn't one. But now Eucan is saying that they can't do it - that they're using those Silver Bins elsewhere in the city, so there are no bins to replace removed Eucan bins. Let me get this right... They are contracted to provide garbage bins. They were allowed to test new prototypes, which are roundly rejected. So they refuse to comply with the original contract? Was Eucan so cocky that they felt there was no possibility that they wouldn't win? Or did they intend to stick it to the city if they lost? SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? CLICK HERE to find out which councillors are keeping their bins, who's having them removed, who seems confused and who won't return our calls.

Sadly, City Council has embarked on a "Street Furniture Harmonisation" process that will hand our streets over to the advertising industry. The Monster Bins are dead, but the fight to protect our sidewalks from being sold by City Council to ad companies has just begun. Visit the Great Toronto Sidewalk Sale to find out more!

They SWORE this wouldn't happen...

During a July 2004 Works meeting, Eucan confidently emphasized that the locking mechanism on their bins was better than OMG's and would prevent this from happening.

The MegaBins pilot is dead.

These things should be off our streets, not earning Eucan revenue.

Find out what your councillor
is doing to replace them.

Not happy with what you see? Let them know.

 

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	E-mail	Send a little note to your City Councillor & the Mayor
	Public Meetings	Attend a Public Meeting at City Hall

 

History	Click here to read how a bad idea got worse.
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Donate	Click here to support our campaign.

Project Co-ordinator:

Alison Gorbould
alison@ publicspace.ca

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City Councillors inspect the new ad-bins. (chimneys added by our witty artists)

Tuesday June 28 2005 City of Toronto Unveils Electric Garbage Bin on Smog Day How embarrassing. As the entire province is pulling their weight to reduce power use, the City of Toronto seems oblivious to the whole notion of energy conservation. As Queens Park turned down their lights and even Honest Eds turned their massive sign off, Toronto decided to unveil their new electric garbage cans designed with seven foot tall illuminated ads that stay on all night. The electric garbage bins are part of a three month pilot project. If appoved by Council, the full rollout of the project will add thousands of light bulbs to the power grid, adding to the strain. But more importantly, the City is setting a bad example about conservation. After all, these lights aren't serving any purpose except to illuminate the ads! Aren't we supposed to be turning off non-essential devices? City Councillor Shelley Carroll, Chair of the city's Works Committee was on site with representatives from the ad firm EUCAN to launch the pilot project on Tuesday afternoon. Clearly the City of Toronto is more interested in meeting the needs of advertising companies rather than setting an example to reduce energy use. Click here to read our full press release about the launch.

Companies like Eucan have a lot of money to spend on lawyers, lobbyists, consultants and election campaign contributions. We don't. Click here to make a financial contribution to our campaign!  THE EUCAN PROPOSAL Click here to download the EUCAN proposal for the new garbage bin billboards (PDF 2.4 MB) WHAT'S WRONG WITH A"MegaBin"? SAFETY, ACCESSIBILTY & FUNCTIONALITY The MegaBin is a billboard disguised as a garbage can. Not only will it introduce more ads to the streetscape, it will have other negative impacts as well: • The MegaBin is barely recognizable as a garbage can. The small trash receptacles are on the narrow sides of the bin. • The MegaBins will be placed to maximise visibility for drivers, rather than being placed conveniently for pedestrians. Most of the MegaBins will be placed 90 degrees to the road, blocking pedestrian space, obstructing sitelines and violating the City of Toronto's Accessibility Design Guidelines (2004). Only half of the recycling receptacles will be easily accesable to pedestrians. • Safety and visibility. Street furniture occupying the public right of way should not be taller than a person unless it is a shelter for a person. Any street furniture taller than a person should be transparent. The proposed garbage cans would block the view of the sidewalk from the road causing potential for accidents. They would block the view to the traffic signals from certain angles. They would reduce the field of vision for "eyes on the street" which is an accepted tool in Crime Prevention through Environmental Design. Garbage cans should be at the street corners but these cans would not be allowed at street corners by the Works department due to their height. WILL THE NEW PROPOSAL MEAN LESS ADS ON THE STREET? Eucan has offered to remove all of the ads from the old "Silver Boxes" if they are allowed to install the MegaBins. Technically, this could result in less square footage of ads. But the MegaBins are twice as high, and are illuminated at night. So even though there might be less, the visual impact on the urban landscape will be much greater. The contract will also be extended under the new plan (more years x less ads = more ads!) BUT DON'T WE CARE ABOUT RECYCLING? Yes, Toronto needs to expand its recycling program urgently. That's why we support the staff request to purchase 1,000 new recycling bins without ads. 1) The bins with ads on them are illuminated. Thousands of lightbulbs, on all night, every night. This is not a step forward for the environment, it's a step back. 2) And where do all of the billboards go each time they change the ads? These plastic posters probably all go to landfill. 3) We can't reduce waste by adding even larger ads onto the streets encouraging people to buy more things. In the end, it's our culture of over-consumption that is to blame for our endless garbage. Also, most waste does not come from pedestrians, or even from households. In fact, the vast majority of waste comes from private companies, including the ones that advertise on our garbage cans! What is the government doing to force these companies to reduce their own waste, use less packaging and include more recyclable and recycled content in their products? Let's focus on waste in the private sector before we privatize more sidewalk space in this city. We fully support the installation of recycling facilities in public space. But we'd prefer to pay for it through tax dollars, rather than through advertising. After all, guess who pays for all those ads? The consumer. We're paying for it either way. So let's drop the ads. HOW BIG ARE THESE NEW CANS? EUCAN states in their report that the new cans have a "smaller footprint". The current OMG cans take up 1.02 square metres on the ground, while the new design has a "footprint" of only .72 square metres. This sounds good, except for the fact that old cans were 1.28m high, and the new ones are 2.3m!! So although the footprint on the ground may be smaller, the total surface area (or "visual footprint") is 50% larger, and 80% higher!! Eucan wants you to believe that because the "footprint" is smaller, that this new can is less intrusive. According to their logic, the CN Tower must be one of the least noticeable structures in Toronto. As far as we're concerned, a 7.5 ft high billboard is not appropriate on any sidewalk in Toronto, regardless of its width or depth. STAFF REPORT The City staff report, released just days before the July 5th Works Committee Meeting, recommended not to accept the Eucan proposal. Unfortunately the Committee voted against the report in a 4-3 decision. Click here to download the Staff Report (PDF 192 K) July 15 2004 - OP-ED: "Attack of the monster cans" Sheila Heti   June 28 2004 - "Proposed trash cans really billboards in disguise" Christopher Hume Editorial: Be wary of flashy trash - July 7 2004 July 7 2004- "Monster trash bins amount to major sellout" Christopher Hume Click here to read Councillor Adam Giambrone's letter to the editor, July 8th 2004 July 9 2004 - "City hall recycles big bin proposal" Paul Moloney July 11 2004 - "How much will the sidewalk sale cost?" Jennifer Wells   July 9 - "Some councillors dump on design for giant trash bins" Jennifer Lewington July 15 2004- "Selling Trash" July 15 2004- "Making a Mess of a Bad Deal" Adria Vasil

Project Co-ordinator:
jonathan@publicspace.ca

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