It’s been about two and a half years since the Department of Sanitation’s new litter basket began to arrive on New York street corners. The Better Bin, as it’s called, now constitutes roughly a quarter of the curbside population. As we noted at the time, it has some clear advantages over its wire-mesh predecessor. Instead of hefting a heavy steel basket, Sanitation workers flip back half of the upper steel collar and pull out a lightweight plastic liner. Unlike the mesh bin, which sometimes ended up rolling around the street or repurposed to reserve a parking place, the whole thing is built on a concrete base that stays put. The split top deters people from dropping in a full bag of household garbage. It’s more ratproof than the mesh one; the plastic liner is easy to swap when it needs replacement; it contains liquids as its predecessor did not. It’s a better design by most measures.
Except one: All those parts means there is more to break. And more than a few Better Bins are, indeed, broken.
