I chose trashcans as the objective of my transect walk. I had no idea about what I would be looking for when I started walking, however the lack of trashcans struck me right away and I decided that I wanted to see how they are positioned around the city.
The average distance between trashcans in areas frequented by tourists is approximately 150 feet; in areas that are primarily used by residents and commuters, the distance between trashcans is about 500-600 feet.
The placement of trashcans is not something that came up in mental maps or talks with residents, but I still think that it is a very important issue. Proper placement of trashcans will create basis for a cleaner city, and city needs to be clean in both tourist and non-tourist neighborhoods. This is one of the issues that have to be on the list of recommendations to Portland.
I compiled a custom Google Map based on my walk, where I mapped the locations of all trashcans and some other stuff. The exact GPS coordinates of trashcans are also available below. You can access the map here.
GPS coordinates were extracted from photos taken with iPhone.
Trashcan 1: 43° 65′ 92.59″ N 70° 24′ 83.57″ W
Trashcan 2: 43° 39′ 27.528″ N 70° 14′ 59.922″ W
Trashcan 3: 43° 39′ 26.808″ N 70° 15′ 0.3″ W
Trashcan 4: 43° 39′ 25.638″ N 70° 15′ 1.842″ W
Trashcan 5: 43° 39′ 24.558″ N 70° 15′ 2.97″ W
Trashcan 6: 43° 39′ 23.16″ N 70° 15′ 5.55″ W
Trashcan 7: 43° 39′ 21.762″ N 70° 15′ 7.53″ W
Trashcan 8: 43° 39′ 21.042″ N 70° 15′ 8.868″ W
Trashcan 9: 43° 39′ 19.668″ N 70° 15′ 11.922″ W
Trashcan 10: 43° 39′ 20.58″ N 70° 15′ 18.618″ W
Trashcan 11: 43° 39′ 21.798″ N 70° 15′ 17.25″ W (a little off)
Trashcan 12: 43° 39′ 21.738″ N 70° 15′ 15.678″ W
Trashcan 13: 43° 39′ 22.458″ N 70° 15′ 14.862″ W
Trashcan 14: 43° 39′ 22.602″ N 70° 15′ 13.818″ W
Trashcan 15: 43° 39′ 23.082″ N 70° 15′ 12.912″ W
Trashcan 16: 43° 39′ 26.658″ N 70° 15′ 12.852″ W
Trashcan 17: 43° 39′ 30.36″ N 70° 15′ 17.802″ W
Trashcan 18: 43° 39′ 35.202″ N 70° 15′ 19.86″ W
Trashcan 19: 43° 39′ 39.432″ N 70° 15′ 14.058″ W
The map you’ve made of trash cans around the city is awesome! You mentioned that there are more trash cans in tourist areas than there are in areas frequented by residents and commuters. Did you notice a difference between the amounts of garbage on the ground in these different areas? I’d be curious to see how trash cans can be placed optimally to ensure that garbage management is efficient, effective, and manageable. Do you think that public recycling bins would also be useful to have around the city? The recycling system works fairly well at Bowdoin; I wonder if something similar could be implemented on the city level.
I am very impressed with the precision of your trash can mapping. I was wondering if these included recycling bins and if not, what is the recycling situation in Portland? Given that Maine is one of the few states that bottle deposits, I feel that recycling bins for bottles and cans could be particularly useful. The distribution of trash cans is also interesting especially in the area beyond Franklin Street where there are almost no trash cans. I do not remember the area too well but I think part of it is still very commercial (Duckfat, Micucci’s). Did there seem to be more trash on the ground in that area?
You are very specific and detailed oriented in your walk. I think you raise an important issue that would convince people analyze the lacerations of trash cans. I am sure it is not the first issue residents think of on improvements, but you bring arguments that insure trashcan placements as important to the city. I think you would have benefited to see where the more littered places are in portland and see where the trashcans are placed in the same area.
Did you notice any litter or anything like that on the portion of your walk where there were fewer trashcans? If so, what types of garbage did you find?
Were you surprised to see that there were more trash cans in the more touristy part of the city? That seems like a reasonable to me. More people walk around in those areas an therefore they would drop more trash. Do you think that the city needs more trashcans or did you decide that there was enough access in the parts of the city with less tourism? What conclusions did you draw from how many trashcans there were?
What a fantastic idea! It is funny how no one ever thinks about the location of trashcans other than the thirty seconds that they need one. Did you find that there was more trash in areas that had less frequent trashcans? It would be really cool if you mapped recycling bins also.
This is well done. Getting exact GPS coordinates for the trashcans makes them extremely easy to map in QGIS. Making a visual representation of this from a bird’s eye view would allow us to quantify (both exactly and by visual approximation) which neighborhoods have enough trashcans–or don’t–and even see how the locations of these trashcans is chosen. This could be an interesting exercise that could be related to mapping potential public WiFi hotspots, or even bike racks around the city.