A Very Trashy Topic

We landed in Paris, France, two days ago. Myself and the other students have been absorbing the sights, sounds, smells, and most importantly, the food. However, with food comes packaging and napkins for wiping hands, so where are the trash cans and how does this beautiful city handle this problem?

As discovered in Dr. Smith’s Planning Lab this past spring, waste management is a very recent thing which pretty much no city or municipality has completely down. Paris is the most traveled to city in the world, and with such a massive influx of tourists and the general population of 2.1 million residents, that’s a lot of trash to manage. Receptacles are a very important aspect of street furniture and urban design that typically goes under the radar for citizens and tourists alike, until they’ve been walking for three blocks carrying a wrapper they need to throw away. The designs and locations of these pieces of furniture are the key aspects of a working waste management system that is organized, efficient, and does not impede on the overall sense of place of the area. Like architecture, a receptacle needs to clearly convey what types of waste can be disposed of there along with needed to show when it is ready to be emptied in order to prevent overflow into the street. Location is pretty self-explanatory, make sure there is a receptacle visible and accessible and people will use it.

For this specific post, there are three types of receptacle I wish to focus on: public, private, and recycling. You can view each of the receptacle types along with their distinguishing features here as this post goes through each type in detail.

Paris saw a massive shift in the types of public receptacles used in 1995. Before this date the public receptacles seem to have been concrete and metal barrels with curve flap lids. This changed a string of terrorist attacks on the transportation system used at least one garbage can in a metro station to conceal the bomb before it exploded. In total eight people died and 157 were injured over the course of four explosions. Several more bombs were found and disposed of before more could go off, and during this time, the french police ordered the removal and sealing of public trash receptacles in and around the metro stations so that more bombs could not be hidden. After these attacks, the public receptacles in Paris were changed to be clear so that everything disposed of in them could be viewed from outside of the receptacles. The cans have stayed this way since.

From the last three days exploring the city, I have noticed four different designs in the public trash cans, which I have named the Cage, Double Post, Rectangular Nub, and the Triforce. The Cage is the receptacle design seen on all public streets and walkways. This design has vertical, slender metal bars that encase the clear bag with a larger opening on one side. This opening allows for the bag to expand outwards of the cage when the trash begins to overflow. This prevents the waste from spilling out onto the street. There is not an enclosed bottom, meaning has moisture that could be enclosed in the can may instead flow out onto the ground, preventing any water damage or odors from the can. The circular opening holds the bag in place using an elastic band, which means removal of the filled bags is easier than having to remove a lid. This is especially helpful since trash is picked up throughout the day, and needs to be done quickly and efficiently. A stand out feature of this design is the small lip on the lid which allows for cigarettes to be extinguished before disposal. This lip even has a cigarette engraving in order to signify its proper use. This design is sleek enough to mesh with the mixture of styles presented on the streets of Paris. It does not impede any of the views, nor does it draw too much attention to itself when you are not looking for one. Location wise, I have seen these all around the areas we have visited. They seem to be the main design of the city, and can be found on most wide public walking spaces. There is at least one on every block, unless it is a narrow walk way, such as in certain areas of the Marias.

The second type of public trash can I saw was the Double Post with two bags hanging off on either end. There was nothing enclosing the bags, they were left to hang freely in the air by an elastic band, which would make for a much faster removal and replacement system. The only time I saw one of these cans was in a park. These designs make for a great use of space and are incredibly efficient for high volume areas were a large amount of trash may be produced but only one can is needed. The other type of can I saw in a park, Jardin Luxembourg specifically, were shorter and rectangular in shape. These were named Rectangular Nubs and used the same type of elastic band to secure the bags. These smaller cans were placed very close together at a high volume, which is partially due to their smaller size and their location within a popular green space. More cans were needed in the Jardin Luxembourg due to it being a tourist destination, rather than the park we visited to discuss Notre Dame de Paris, which was more for locals to enjoy. The double post cans are presumably used in small parks and playgrounds as they can hold more trash in a smaller area.

The last type of public receptacle I saw was found inside the Italie Deux and were named the Triforce. These receptacles stood out as different from the others as they had a thicker casing around the clear bags. With the thicker casing, this reduced the amount of visibility into the bags. However, this reduction in visibility is possibly because we had to go through security to even enter the building, meaning this area probably has less of a security concern than the street or public park. This design would make it more difficult to remove the bags from inside the cans, and could possible make it so that one would have to remove the lid in order to remove the bags. Another interesting difference was the fact that these cans had lids! With three different holes for different types of waste! Plastics, papers and newspapers, and other waste. This was the first public receptacle which excepted recyclables as a different category. This is possibly due to the fact that visitors would be purchasing more goods in the mall rather than on the streets, which would be producing more of the different types of waste.

For private receptacles, I have only seen two of the four types being used by businesses. These two types are the yellow and green designated cans. Design wise, they look like the totes we use back in Fredericksburg, with the exemption of the different colored lids. The yellow lids are used to designate a single stream, non-bagged recycling tote. In these totes are a mixture of paper, metal, and plastics. These are sorted at the plant into the proper categories for recycling. The green lids are used for all other types of waste and use bags. Foods, electronics, contaminated recyclables, etc., are all taken to the landfill from this tote. The other two totes are the white and maroon lids. White lids are used specifically for glass only and remain unbagged. The glass cannot be broken, and no other recyclables should be placed inside this type of tote. The maroon lids are used for composting (which is actually wonderful and I hope we get to see more of these totes being used around the city!) and bags are necessary for this tote. The city takes the composting to a communal site, just as they do for the recycling process. Design wise, these aren’t the most appealing things to look at, however the separate colors for the lids make the process more organized and efficient for everyone involved. And since the citizens own them, they control how fast they are removed from the sidewalks. Which can be a challenge when moving around the streets, however the totes are a reasonable size and do not take up the entire walkway.

Lastly, let’s talk recycling. The question that has been nagging my mind these three days is simple: where the heck is all the public recycling? In America, we typically have the waste and recycling receptacles next to each other for easy disposal, or have the recycling cans in their own area on the block. Yet, everywhere we’ve walked as a class, I have yet to see a receptacle that is just for recycling. The Triforce has two separate holes for recycling, which is nice but that’s in an enclosed space. What if I wish to recycle a plastic water bottle as I walk through the Jardin Luxembourg?

Upon further research into this inconvenience, I found out that in Paris there are only a few public recycling stations scattered around the city. These Trilib machines are located in the 2nd, 13th, 18th and 19th arrondissements of the city, and more have been slated for implementation this year. With four different sections separating glass, plastics and metal, paper and cardboard, and large moving boxes, these stations encompass everything that someone would need to recycle in one area. Although, this poses a great issue when it comes to the amount of recyclables that actually make it to the proper plant. According to Agence France-Presse, in 2018 the country was recycling just 22% of the plastic waste it was producing. With the addition of public recycling receptacles along the streets, this number could go up drastically. The design could be the same as the Cage receptacles, just with a yellow top in order to signify that it is a recycling receptacle. They could be placed near by the receptacles already present, or only in areas that could have two receptacles without making the walkways less accessible. These small changes could help make the country more competitive in the recycling industry, and if not the city, the capital could use this improvement just in a general sense of becoming more environmentally friend.

Overall, I think that the public receptacles we’ve seen so far have interesting and capable designs that clearly state the function of the street furniture. These designs are seamlessly implemented into the city without worry that they’ll disrupt the sense of place each section brings. The private receptacles are a tried and true design used all over the world, however the use of different colored lids and breaking the waste flow up into four sections is clever and efficient. Lastly, the recycling state of the city is just a little saddening. However, with the further implementation of the Trilib machines coming this year, and if more single recycling receptacles were implemented, this could easily be handled. Especially since this city is beautiful and filled to the brim with people who create trash, and keeping that beauty requires keeping littering and trash overflow down to a minimum.

 

Sources:

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/aug/19/trash-cans-removed-after-paris-bombing/

https://www.planetizen.com/node/39107

http://www.secretsofparis.com/heathers-secret-blog/recycling-in-paris-just-got-easier.html

https://www.thelocal.fr/20181024/how-much-does-france-really-care-about-recycling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_France_bombings