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Agreed. It was never my intent to suggest that they would be doing so.

So move up the management ladder, if you will, until a party that is responsible for making this kind of decision is reached. That's the class of party of which I was speaking, and where I suggested that irrational decisions are being made.

Someone -- at some point -- did make a decision to eliminate outdoor trash cans at these establishments. They used to be present and no longer are, and they didn't disappear on their own.

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I'm not sure that anyone in the management ladder is affected. People don't generally choose a fast food restaurant or convenience store based on the cleanliness of their parking lots, so sales isn't going to be affected. Nor is staff, already cut to minimal levels, going to be given additional hours to keep the parking lots clean.

There even might be a disincentive to have garbage cans if they can't be maintained. People who don't litter will either take the extra step of going indoors, or they might leave it in their own car to throw out later. Whereas people who do litter will do so regardless of when there are trash cans. By removing outdoor trash cans, you've "saved" the staff the time to monitor and clear out those trash cans.

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People do chose fast food by the neighborhood. When I was at McDonald's - 30 years ago so this may have changed - corporate policy was you would clean your parking lot and everyone for one block. We were encouraged to paint any abandoned building in the one block range at our expense just to ensure the area looked nice.
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If that's really your take on this then I have no option but to accept it.

Let's move forward.

What incentivized them to provide the trash cans to begin with, might you suppose? They aren't cheap to buy, or to maintain, or to keep emptied daily (or as they fill up, or whatever). But yet: They were things that existed, and their existence was definitely deliberate.

What motivates companies that still provide outdoor trash cans to continue to do so?

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It's probably part of the initial franchise standards, required and signed off by the fast food corporation. Or the shopping center design. We know as a society, that we need garbage cans, so they are budgeted for and installed.

But owners are always looking for ways to save money. If the garbage can works fine, it gets maintained. But if it gets hit by a car, or the wind blows it away, it might not be at the top of the list of things to fix. The remnants of the garbage can are removed. The expense gets put off for another month. And slowly the lack of garbage cans becomes normal, and staff can remove another responsibility from their list.

Now the situation becomes, who wants to spend a bunch of money to put in garbage cans, and also add onto the staff's workload? It's not like customers are asking for the manager to install garbage cans.

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> So move up the management ladder, if you will, until a party that is responsible for making this kind of decision is reached. That's the class of party of which I was speaking, and where I suggested that irrational decisions are being made.

No matter what, big or small, it's always a Republican's fault, huh.

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