With all the events, businesses and general traffic around downtown Columbus, a considerable amount of trash is generated, and that trash has to go somewhere. That's why the Downtown Business Improvement District board, in collaboration with Keep Columbus Beautiful, invested in new trash cans that will soon be distributed around downtown Columbus. "The conversation has been going on for a while, since 2016, but there's always been some kind of barrier or setback," said Vanessa Oceguera, executive director of Keep Columbus Beautiful.
"In late 2023 I met up with (DBID board president) Josh Johnson and they had discussions about, they were trying to accomplish the same thing. I was like, 'there's no point in both of us trying to do the same thing here.'" Because both sides had ideas of what they wanted the trash cans to look like, they worked together to combine their designs, which then had to be approved by the city's street department, which will be in charge of emptying and maintaining the receptacles.
There will be 30 new locally made trash cans installed throughout the downtown area in coming weeks, Oceguera said. "They're made local," she said. "I worked with Darin (Ditter) at Distar.
He built them, then they are powder coated black (by Powder Coating Plus LLC)." The replacement cans have been a long time coming, DBID Board President Joshua Johnson said. With the old ones being more than 20 years old, they certainly look their age and something like this was a quick and easy item to cross off of their to-do list.
"When we formed the board, we tried to conquer the world, but we wanted to find little things that we could get done that would be a quick hit wins," Johnson said. "Vanessa approached us with the idea of going in and collaborating on them, because their board was also looking at replacing the trash cans. So then we could use funding from both agencies to get it done at a much faster pace than relying on one or the other.
" Johnson said the DBID is looking at a few other improvements in the near future, like banners around the downtown area in partnership with the TRAX Creative District, lighting and sound setups in Frankfort Square and potentially flower pots. The district board really wanted to get something accomplished to get the ball rolling on planned upgrades, Johnson said. "We said .
.. we want to keep as much locally sourced as we possibly can," Johnson said.
"That's what we're kind of looking at right now for quick hits and getting that rolling. It's just like when we first started, we had to figure out our purpose, we had to navigate all the different volunteers with all their different ideas, and try to get it narrowed down." Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter.
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