The early years of the 21st century will be remembered as the time when the Great Wheelie Bin War was fought in Edinburgh. Never in the field of city planning has such a great battle been fought so passionately by so many, over a receptacle for household rubbish.
When Edinburgh City Council took the decision to rid their streets of black bin bags and introduce the giant metal bins into residential areas, they could scarcely have guessed the spleen that would be vented. However, the complaints that greeted the new bins in Stockbridge, Marchmont and Trinity last summer was nothing on what was to come. Behind the Georgian façades of the New Town, people were getting ready to fight.
Objections to the bins were raised on grounds of noise and smell, that they attracted vermin, jeopardised road safety, used up valuable parking spaces, encouraged fly tipping but most complaints were about their appearance. They were described as "an act of cultural vandalism" defacing a World Heritage Site. Placards waved outside the City Chambers, newspaper letters pages blazed with anti-bin vitriol. Prince Charles wrote to the council asking them to explain their bin policy. The lawyers of Heriot Row were ready to fight through every court in the land.
Recently, however, despite their best efforts, the council has announced the go-ahead of a 16-week pilot scheme in the Old Town and the New Town, with the backing of the Scottish Executive. Bins could be in Canongate, Heriot Row and Fettes Row by the end of April.
Are wheelie bins here to stay? Even the objectors would agree that black bin bags, left out all night to be ripped open by foxes and seagulls, are far from ideal. One leading architect worked out that one million square feet of cupboard space across Edinburgh is freed up if we don’t have to store our rubbish in the house until bin day.
So, if some kind of rubbish receptacle is better than none, what are the alternatives?
The council has considered collapsible bins and bins with historical wrought-iron features. We asked some of the top minds from art, sculpture and design to come up with creative solutions to the great wheelie bin problem.
Artist and former gallery owner Richard Demarco says: "The typewriter was just the typewriter till Olivetti came along. Who’s going to be the Olivetti of the wheelie bin?"
Richard Demarco’s public art project ARTIST and former gallery owner Richard Demarco suggests a scheme combining the need to improve the wheelie bin with a means of funding public art. Artists, sculptors, designers and art students could apply for funding to take responsibility for a bin of their own for a fixed period of time. "They could either intervene in the design discreetly with colour change or put on concrete poetry. Designs could change with the seasons, or they could make the bin relevant to the families who would use it."
Offering to mastermind the scheme himself if appointed in an official capacity, he says: "At the moment we just ignore wheelie bins, pretend that they’re not there. The time has come to be brave enough to admit they’re there to stay and give them proper attention. The only people fit to transform them from leaden lumps of metal are the artists.
"This could make the wheelie bin into an acceptable object, a welcome symbol of a cultural nature. The whole business would be removed from the realm of the bureaucrat and taken into the realm of the artist, and there would be a piece of art on every street.
"Either the wheelie bin has to stay as something we don’t want, or it becomes a symbol of the artist in our lives in the city of Edinburgh. The bin is here to stay because we can’t think of anything better. Artists can help us think of the wheelie bin in a better light. It would prove that art has truly come out of the limitations of art galleries and on to the streets. It’s a clarion call for all artists!"
Blue Marmalade’s bin makeover 
Graphics:Clive O'Neill
<strong>1</strong> During collection the top of the unit would swing open and release its waste when lifted up onto refuse truck
<strong>2</strong> Public access would be via doors. Each householder
EDINBURGH furniture and product design company Blue Marmalade’s technical director Trent Jennings says: "The current bin hasn’t really been designed, it’s just a big container, looming out from among a line of cars.
"The bins are operated by pushing a bar with foot to open a lid, but they usually don’t open very far so you have to use one hand to open the lid and the other to lift the bag into the container. If you’re frail or unsteady on your feet, it becomes increasingly difficult, and impossible if you’re in a wheelchair.
"Smell also has to be taken seriously. If the bins are emptied regularly it should be kept to a minimum, also, regular cleaning would help. But the choice of black as the bin’s colour seems odd - it will increase the heat inside under sunlight and lead to more smell.
However, he acknowledges that the problem goes further than these practical considerations. "The argument over the wheelie bins has partly been emotional and it seems necessary to improve the public emotional response. We propose striving for a feel of quality, achieved by the materials - stainless steel with applied weathered oak buffers - and a good mechanism. The lid will open downwards on a dampened counterweight system that holds it open for the time required to throw in the rubbish then closes, slowly at first, then accelerating, like a tape deck. Overall dimensions are the same height as parked cars, to reduce the visual intrusion and make it more accessible."
Trying to make the design fit with area history was a mistake: "We don’t always have to design for the past. We don’t live in the past, we live in the present."
David Mach takes up the challenge CELEBRATED Scots sculptor David Mach, whose work includes the huge heads on the M8 near Glasgow, believes Edinburgh City Council should run a competition for artists, sculptors and designers to come up with the ideal bin. "If we’ve got to have something, why shouldn’t it be something good?"
He says that far from rubbishing the idea, many artists would jump at the chance to design a bin. "I’d love to take part in a competition like that. A lot of artists would. It’s what we used to do all the time in the Scottish Enlightenment. If there’s a problem, we’ll invent something, and we’ll do it first. This could be the Enlightenment wheelie bin."
However, he says that the bins should reflect the future, not the past. "We wouldn’t want to be the Edinburgh Castle of wheelie bins, the Greyfriars Bobby of wheelie bins, the 18th-century wheelie bin, tartan and covered with shortbread. We need to get away from that.
"I think Edinburgh would want to be thought of as a town living in the present and heading into the future. Start with something that fits into the 21st century, a beautiful crisp box made with modern materials or something futuristic and egg-shaped like a space ship. The architecture is perfectly able to withstand that, they don’t fight each other, they live together.
"It’s great PR for Edinburgh, and for Scotland - ‘This country is so great even the wheelie bins look fantastic.’ The only thing we must avoid is the Scottish Parliament wheelie bin - costs escalating all the time and the thing’s never finished!"
Kris Oldham’s hi-tech bin YOUNG Scottish car designer Kris Oldham from Ayrshire, who has worked for Land Rover and MG Rover, suggests throwing a bit more 21st-century technology at the humble wheelie bin problem.
In his design the bins are stored underground, something which already happens in other countries, such as Holland. The binmen would use a remote control to lift the bin, which is on two pneumatic struts, to street level for emptying.
The bin is fitted with a separate inside container made from recyclable material which is removed every time the bin is emptied, to keep the bin clean. Odours would be further eliminated by a clean-air filter.
Residents would have secure access to their own bin via a remote control device with password, although this technology could be further developed to operate through mobile phones.
Atmospheric sensors inside the bin could alert the Council that the bin is full and raise it to street level in time for collection. The outer rim of the bin lid could be illuminated at nights to provide street lighting.
Oldham told The Scotsman: "Some of the ideas I’ve used were inspired by vehicle design.
"The bin is supported by two pneumatic struts at either side that allow an effortless rise to the surface, but the refuse is stored underground, which eliminates many of the problems with the present bin."
Richard Murphy’s design classic 
Graphics:Clive O'Neill
<strong>1</strong> Certain faces of the unit could be used as community notice boards and for permitted Edinburgh Festival and Fringe shows, exhibitions etc or for advertisements similar to the familiar bus shelte
ARCHITECT Richard Murphy, the award-winning designer of buildings such as Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery and Dundee Contemporary Arts, believes that the council needs to hit upon a design that people will take to their hearts.
"The wheelie bin in its present structure is an ugly beast. But there have been examples of street furniture which have become classics. The best example is the GPO red telephone box. No-one minds having one of those outside their house. The red pillar box is also a classic of its time.
"I can’t see why they don’t design something better which is utilitarian but still a design classic."
Another example of classic street furniture is the cylindrical kiosks on the boulevards of Paris, bright with notices and theatrical playbills. This dovetails with a suggestion put forward by Crichton Wood, a Scottish architect with a particular interest in bringing elements of Scottish traditional design to life in contemporary materials - to use each bin as a community noticeboard.
"We need to claim them back from a public point of view. That could be done with an element of community participation, turning it into a notice board, putting on drawings from primary schools, local news, poetry. It would be quite easy to develop a way to keep it clean, and it could be changed regularly.
"It could help us to rediscover an element of community. After all putting out the rubbish is something that everybody has to do. People could take pride in it and, rather than being something you don’t want to see, it could be covered with useful information."
