Item — HN Reader

>A cross bar at the top of the basket functions as both a hinge for the lid and a barrier to stop people from dumping bulk and household trash—which often overflowed the bins.

Is it just me or is anyone else exhausted by things like this? Every design has to take into account bad faith actors.

4 comments

I guess it's just part of why something as seemingly simple as a street corner trash can is such a challenging problem to solve. I wish I didn't need 500 lbs of safety features in my car but you need to account for bad actors, idiots on the road, and accidents. I appreciate when thought goes in to the worst-case misuses of everyday objects, even a trash can.

It also assumes that the household garbage dumper is going to carry their trash back to their house and wait for garbage day, when really they'll just drop their garbage back next to the trash can that it doesn't fit in. There's another solution to that problem, and they might have the wrong angle entirely here.

I have seen in Brooklyn multiple people pull up to a curb, open the car door, and dump trash out onto the street. it's appalling.

Private vehicle drivers in NYC are a special class of selfish and low integrity city residents.

Cheaters are part of the environment - of course you have to consider them. Just because you like your rules doesn't mean everyone else does.

Sometimes pondering the natural world for a while is healthy. There's a lot of deceptive, underhanded trickery animals get up to.

I'm watching 4 squirrels attack a bird feeder outside my window right now. :]

I agree that it is exhausting, but sadly no less necessary.

It's the technological/design response to the over exploitation of a limited shared resource, aka the tragedy of the commons.