The Tenderloin has to replace its fancy trash bins. No one knows with what.

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Update: After this story published, the city announced it would pay through the end of the Tenderloin Community Benefit District’s lease on the Bigbelly smart trash bins. Those bins will remain in place until the city’s new custom-designed trash bins hit the streets next year.

The Tenderloin Community Benefit District is scrambling after it lost funding for the 76 high-end solar-powered trash bins that dot the neighborhood. 

In 2020, the CBD, a nonprofit run by local community members dedicated to improving the neighborhood, removed dozens of city trash bins from within its borders.

Those cans, it says, were often rifled through, spreading more garbage on the street. In their place, the organization rented and installed 76 solar-powered, tamper-resistant, trash-compacting cans made by Bigbelly, a Massachusetts-based company whose bins are popular with many CBDs across the city. 

The new bins were paid for with grants from the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development. At the time they were installed, the CBD leased them from Bigbelly for $150 each a month — $1,800 a year each, or $136,800 a year for all 76.    

Funding for the bins and maintenance — some $150,000 per year — was supposed to last until the scandal-ridden Department of Public Works could deliver its own custom-designed trash cans across the city, according to a 2023 OEWD grant.

But that process has dragged on: Years later, Public Works’ bizarre and expensive odyssey to commission its own trash cans has not reached the manufacturing stage, and the CBD lost its grant in June. 

Tenderloin CBD’s executive director Kate Robinson hopes the city can help fund the Bigbelly cans until the Department of Public Works can bring in replacement trash bins.

The replacements may end up being the same old cans moved out in 2020, and just receiving those could take about four months, according to Public Works spokesperson Rachel Gordon. 

“I don’t want there to even be a week where there are no trash cans,” said Robinson. “My biggest worry is that we don’t coordinate closely enough to make sure that there’s not a gap.”

The loss of funding, she added, means the nonprofit will have to pay more than $150,000 to get out of its contract with Bigbelly, which runs through September 2026. 

Robinson and others say this outcome could have been foreseen. 

“There wasn’t a long-term plan,” said Robinson, who took over the CBD in 2022. “I mean, does it make sense for OEWD to pay for CBDs to pay for trash cans? No!”  

Former Tenderloin CBD head Simon Bertrang, who signed the initial contract with Bigbelly, said the city needed to step in. 

“The city should have a responsibility to deliver adequate trash can service,” Bertrang said when asked what he thought of the CBD’s current predicament. “I think it’s the city’s responsibility.”  

While the Bigbelly cans were purportedly superior at keeping trash inside the bins by preventing people from rummaging, Bertrang said it was unclear whether they even had an effect on reducing trash in the neighborhood, given the onset of the pandemic, the proliferation of sidewalk encampments, and the arrival of intensive street cleaning and community ambassadors. 

The Castro Community Benefit District saw the writing on the wall early and, after a brief stint with just a handful of Bigbelly bins, reinstalled its city cans in 2020. 

“Grants always go from year to year, so you never know from year to year about city funding. That’s just the way it is, right?” said Andrea Aiello, the executive director of the Castro Community Benefit District. “We just decided it wasn’t worth it.” 

Bigbelly cans are costly, reportedly retailing for thousands of dollars apiece. 

Leasing the cans isn’t much better: In addition to the $150,000 annual grant that the Tenderloin CBD spent on the bins, the organization also had to supplement with its own reserves (including property owner assessments) to keep the program running.

Last year, it spent an extra $93,000 to compensate for delayed grant funds and maintenance, and now faces more fees to terminate its contract. 

When the bins became a target for damage and vandalism, additional costs to the CBD for repairs or replacements followed. 

“We have a whole graveyard of them,” said Kate Robinson. “Ones that have been blown up, set on fire — you know, completely damaged beyond repair.” 

Robinson said that the CBD has stopped replacing damaged Bigbelly bins, which will be gone soon anyway. Gordon said the city-designed bins will be cheaper, and may hit the streets in coming months.

On Wednesday, people walked past a Bigbelly bin at the northeast corner of Jones and Ellis streets. Most of them didn’t even try to use it, which was just as well. The handle was missing and the foot pedal was broken. 

“That thing don’t work,” said one pedestrian, not unkindly.

Recology garbage collectors knew the bin was broken, but no one had come to take it away. And the trash keeps coming. Around the bin sat a stack of garbage bags, scattered trash, and an old wheelchair.