Garbage Can Fetish: Colonial Roundup

Since the European capitals offer little in the way of culture, architecture and tourist attraction, there has been lots of time to look at some of the garbage cans in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Malta, and see if these places need to resort to ad revenue to support civic infrastructure. These are three places that all lived and/or live under the thumb of the English Colonial Oppression (TM) for a long while. The Maltese, however, got out — either in 1964 or 1979, depending on which political party you ask — while the Scottish, so says the writing on the wall, still suffer despite devolution and the rise of the Scottish Parliament. Most importantly for Scotland’s future, they don’t have ads on their garbage cans.

The remnants of the yoke of oppression does however afford Edinburgh some nice, solid rubbish bins, complete with royal ER & crown. It makes throwing rubbish out seem very important and one can imagine the Queen herself throwing out things in a can like this a few miles north in Balmoral. Not much recycling on the streets though, so for a Torontonian used to such things, there are lots of guiltly feelings.

This can was for litter, not rubbish, but rubbish is more fun to say, especially the way the locals here say it. They use it to describe a state of being, sometimes. “My friend had to move away and that’s rubbish” — it feels good to say this word. Rubbish. They do, however, say “toilet,” without any “bathroom/washroom” euphemisms, making it hard to ask where to go, as the word toilet is much too vulgar to say aloud. The above can is not royal, but even these commoner cans have no ads.

This can is in Leith, where I’m spending most of my Scottish time. Nice looking can.

An interesting feature on this one is the butt-out (er, fag-out) area on top. People don’t seem to take the next step and throw the butt-fag out though, leaving them on top, where they blow in the wind. They smoke more than the Quebecois here, but in the spring Scotland went smoke free, making the pubs a nice place to be. I recorded a [murmur] story from a fellow on the patio of one. He was hooked up to his emphesema machine and in a motorized wheelchair and had diabetes (the microphone is like a scalpel sometimes, revealing all), but said it was rubbish that he has to come outside to smoke.

Only a few hours spent in Glasgow before flying to Malta, but enough time to see some cans. The city is only 1.15 hours away from Edinburgh by train, and they run very often, so many people commute between the two. The ease of intercity travel in Europe never fails to amaze. No ads on cans in Bell & Sebastien land. Incidentally, Glasgow seems to be an extremely well dressed and sexy city. At least in the core. Well tailored clothes make for better public spaces, baggy does not. Technically people’s bodies are private space and can do as they please though.

Malta has many different kinds of cans. These are in St. Paul’s Bay and have the local council crest on it. The fliptops were a little dirty though. All the Maltese towns have their own crests, even though the Island is smaller than Toronto, it’s hard to tell where one town stops and another starts, and only has approximately 450,000 people.

Not sure why dogs get special cans, but they do. It is Europe though, and there is an abundance of dogshit on the sidewalks, so perhaps people needed the extra encouragement. As you can see by the graphic, the dogs of Malta are proud of their adless cans.