After the very long and some would say unnecessary selection, design, public comment, and fabrication process, the first of those fancy new, custom-made rubbish bins have arrived on San Francisco streets.The first eight have been installed, as Mission Local reports, with the first examples appearing at undisclosed corners in the Castro, Mission, Sunset, and Richmond districts, along with Potrero Hill, Forest Hill, and North Beach. The one location that is confirmed is outside the former Hibernia Bank building at McAllister and Jones streets, near mid-Market.Per Mission Local, the latter trash can had already attracted some graffiti this week, but Public Works spokesperson Rachel Gordon immediately sent someone to clean it.The very long saga with these trash cans dates back to 2018, when, during the Ed Lee and Mohammad Nuru era, the Department of Public Works embarked on a process to find a new trash can that would work for the city's streets, incorporating a section for recycling, and allowing for removable bins that could be easily emptied by Recology workers.The story gained widespread media attention in mid-2021, when the Board of Supervisors had to approve a contract for manufacture of 15 prototype cans in three different models — the headline being that these trash cans were going to cost the city $20,000 apiece. Now, that figure was based on the design and fabrication of a small number of these prototypes, and did not reflect what the per-can price would be once these were manufactured at scale. And the city was also planning to test a group of off-the-shelf prototypes alongside the custom-made ones, for potential cost savings.After on-the-street testing and a public vote in mid-2022, the 'Slim Silhouette' model was selected for the job. And, somehow, it took three years before we heard that the fabrication was underway, and that we'd be seeing the cans out in the wild sometime this year.As Public Works informs Mission Local, only eight have been installed in a sort of soft-launch, to see how they perform. What did these things cost in the end? Public Works said last year that they believed the per-can manufacturing cost would end up being around the same as the price many of the off-the-shelf models, at or under $3,000. But we don't yet have the final price tag, and it's not clear if all 3,000 or so that would be needed to replace the existing street trash cans have been ordered or made.Do update us if you see one being used or abused, in the wild.Previously: San Francisco May Start to See Fancy New Sidewalk Trash Cans at Long Last, By Next Year ...read more read less