Casa Grande Dispatch

You see them everywhere in the newer areas of Casa Grande, those 96-gallon trash cans rolled out to the curb for the twice-weekly city pickup.

As you see them looking like toy soldiers lining the streets, you wonder how many are really out there.

“I want to say there’s about 17,000 total,” Public Works Director Kevin Louis said Monday night in answer to a question from Mayor Bob Jackson as the City Council was considering paying $63,276 for 1,248 replacements.

“I just want to put that in perspective, because I think it’s important,” Jackson said.

The majority of the containers, stackable to reduce storage space, will be used to replace older broken and deteriorating residential ones, Louis said.

The Sanitation Department is down to about 300 in reserve after buying about 1,500 last year for replacements and new service, he said.

Each container will cost $50.70, including tax and freight.

The lifespan of cans has ranged from seven to 15 years, Louis said, with newer ones lasting toward 12 to 15 years. In the past, he said, some of the cans had lasted only five to seven years.

Louis said the new cans, from Toter Inc., will be manufactured using rotational molding rather than plastic injection.

Toter describes that molding technique as making the materials “tougher, more elastic and have greater cold weather impact strength than injection molded materials,” with higher resistance to stress cracking. “This means longer lasting carts with less cracking in fully automated service — typically 15-plus years with minimal failures.”