A green trash can rested against a wall at the end of a narrow alley in the Rockridge area of Oakland, California. Perhaps it had to be rolled all the way down this alley to be set next to a curb for pickup.

Square is the new round in trash cans. Where concrete is used to create a heavy container immune from tipping, a square with a cylinder inside is even heavier.

One problem with modern trash pickup is that the only place to store waste containers in an apartment complex is behind the building. When the building borders the street, the backyard can become an unsightly collection of containers.

A middle aged can under the Transamerica Pyramid showed one attempt to design waste containers that vandals could not easily tip over. Made of concrete, they were stout and very bottom heavy, but were occasionally tipped anyway.

A modern looking container awaited modern scraps. Note the space on top for recyclable materials.