Beautiful & Fishy Trashcans Coming to Kodiak

An example of the decorative trashcan shell in Anacortes. Via Wikipedia
 
Kayla Desroches/KMXT

Trash can be beautiful – or trashcans at least.

One Kodiak resident wants to enrich the city with decorative garbage exteriors that he says can be pretty and show Kodiak’s unique history at the same time.

Bruce Schactler is a fisherman with a vision, one he says popped up in the Lower 48.

“This isn’t a new idea,” he says. “I think it’s been kicked around even here in town before. I ran into it in the town of Astoria, they got the idea from the town of Anacortes, one in Oregon, one in Washington. And what it is is a shell for the trashcan to go into, and the shell is covered in a graphic that makes it look just like a can of salmon.”

He says businesses can choose which historic can labels to decorate their trashcan shells with when they invest in one.

“We’re right now in the process of giving the businesses time to ponder whether they would like to be part of this project. Hopefully they will,” says Schactler. “We already have several that have committed to take part, and I expect that – my goal is by the end of the month that these will be ordered.”

Schactler has worked with several other people around town to hash out the project plan and has presented at city council meetings. City manager Aimée Kniaziowski says Schactler is working with support from the city and the Downtown Revitalization Committee.  

“Once we have determined how many people and how many businesses are going to participate, then the city will go ahead and place the order once the graphic design has been complete and the number of cans we would like to order has been complete,” says Kniaziowski.

Kniaziowski says she’s looking forward to having the decorative trashcans in the city.

“It’ll be fun to see some real colorful, better conditioned cans around the downtown area and hopefully that program over the time might grow so that more businesses and more areas can utilize those.”
 
According to Schactler, the manufacturer is located in Portland and the shells will have historic labels from canneries like the New England Fish Company and Alaska Packers. He says the shells will be around $1150 a piece and says he and the others involved hope to work with the freight company to minimize the cost of getting the product to Kodiak.

If you’d like to donate or invest in a shell yourself, you can call Schactler at (907) 738 6451 or visit the Friends of Kodiak Facebook page.