Pizza Boxes Pile Up in SF’s North Beach. These Trash Cans Were Designed Just for Them

In San Francisco’s historic North Beach neighborhood, city officials are finally addressing one of residents’ most pressing concerns — pizza boxes.

Among the tourists and locals alike who flock to Washington Square Park, many come with boxes of fresh, steaming pizza from nearby Tony’s Pizza Napoletana or Golden Boy. But upon finishing the delicious pie, a struggle often ensues: Diners’ now-empty cardboard containers can’t be easily tossed into city trash cans.

For years, pizza eaters have had to bend or flatten and squash the cumbersome boxes into circular metal bins — and some, neighbors said, just dump them instead — but no longer. Beginning Friday, the park’s corners have brand new receptacles designed specifically to tackle the cheesy challenge.

“In North Beach, pizza, that’s serious business,” said Sal Coniglio, CEO of Recology, the city’s waste management contractor.

The company is partnering with San Francisco’s Department of Public Works on the pilot project, which includes two of the specialty bins installed at the park’s edge on Stockton Street at both Union and Filbert streets on Friday.

The new metal bins are hard to miss, reading “pizza drop off” and wrapped in blue and green designs by San Francisco muralist Sirron Norris. Three sides of each have slits designed specifically to accommodate pizza boxes — at least those from Slice House, Flour + Water, Golden Boy and Tony’s, all of which christened the bin on Friday.

The cans address a significant gripe of nearby business owners and neighbors. Pizza boxes often get dumped on sidewalks and park benches, or piled up on trash cans, contributing to more residual litter, said Peter Kwan, a longtime resident and board member of North Beach Neighbors, who has countless photos to prove it.

“If you come out to this park, especially in the summer, every single weekend, it is well enjoyed and well loved,” said San Francisco Supervisor Danny Sauter, whose district includes North Beach. “But the problem with that is that means after the weekend, you’re going to see this park littered with pizza boxes.”

Director of Public Works Carla Short said that when people try to throw away boxes, they often clog the city’s standard green bins.

“Then that can starts to overflow, and then we end up with trash around it and that spreads,” she said. “North Beach is a vibrant neighborhood in San Francisco, and we want our city to look its best. We want to make sure that we can make it easy for [people] to do the right thing.”

Longtime city residents might shudder at the mention of a new trash can solution, given the city’s long and expensive history of failed attempts to tackle littered streets. In 2007, then-Mayor Gavin Newsom declared the city had “too many” bins, vowing to remove half. A decade later, the city determined there were too few, and opted to place — or replace — almost 40 on streets in the Mission District, to the tune of $1,600 each.

And, since 2021, city officials have been working on a garbage bin redesign, which first made headlines after three custom prototypes cost $12,000 to $20,000 a piece. In 2022, they selected the “Slim Silhouette,” a futuristic-looking canister with stainless-steel rods and small openings for trash and recyclables, which will cost an estimated $1,375 each to mass produce.

The saga has racked up a bill of more than half a million dollars already, not including the $10 million contract awarded last year to actually produce the new bins.

But North Beach’s new designer receptacles aren’t expected to significantly cost the city, which is currently facing a nearly $1 billion budget deficit.

Recology, which designed the bins, also paid for their fabrication. The city will only cover installation costs and routine collection services, which Sauter’s office said don’t require any additional budget allocation.

Short said the project is currently in a pilot phase, but depending on how well-used and effective it is, it could be expanded in the future.

So far, it seems like residents are enjoying the novelty. After Jeff Garfield finished his slice around 1 p.m. Friday, he dropped his empty container in one of the brand-new bins.

“It made a very pleasant plop sound, sort of similar to the plop sound that the pizza made from Tony’s that went right down into my stomach,” he said. “It just plopped right in there and settled down.”