Your Ad Here? Should Trash Cans Take Ads?
Are New York City trash cans, at least the sides of them, wasted space? Though many bear the names of the Council members who requested them, David Yassky (who asked that his name not be placed on their metal rims) would prefer that advertisers pay to see their logos and products placed there, instead. “We…
Are New York City trash cans, at least the sides of them, wasted space? Though many bear the names of the Council members who requested them, David Yassky (who asked that his name not be placed on their metal rims) would prefer that advertisers pay to see their logos and products placed there, instead. “We sell ad space on buses, phone booths, subways — even moving taxis,” he told the Daily News. “It’s silly to think we wouldn’t sell it on our trash cans when there are companies that will pay to put it there.” The city has some 25,000 cans on the street, and Yassky predicts selling ad space on them could generate as much as $1.5 million a year. Apparently it’s been tried in places before, like Times Square, with little success, but the Sanitation Department is at least willing to consider it. The money could be used to provide more trash cans; for now, those funds come from Council members’ budgets. Until then, some trash cans, like the one above, are the site of makeshift public art projects.
Yassky Pushes for Ads on Trash Cans [NY Daily News]
Rainbow Trash. Photo by pietroizzo.
I’m with workingworking. Enough eye-pollution. OR, if it’s inevitable, any chance we could make the add SMALL so there’s less visual pollution. How about sponsored mirrors on the subway? It’s been done successfully in Japan.
no more ads! too many already.
Maybe advertisers could just paste-up our whole landscape wall to wall. Then we could all get tons of money! I can’t wait!!
I think it could be a good idea. Maybe they could price it so that local people with small businesses could take advantage of it: even use it for announcing stoop sales.
seems fine to me. i’m from l.a. and theyve been doing this for years in the beach area. besides revenue, on the plus side it means the cans are always clean on the outside as the graphics are refreshed and rotated, versus having increasingly dirty rusting cans. dont really think this is a big “quality of life” issue.
Eh. Why not?
This can backfire terribly. I have a photo of a large trash container in Phnom Penh that is overflowing with rubbish all around it and on the side of the container it reads “A Gift from Great Britain” and the Union Jack there as well.