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Ulysses Whittington, with the Department of Public Works, unloads a trash bin at Broadway and Columbus Street. Public Works is testing three custom-designed and three off-the-shelf trash can models.

At Fifth and Mission streets, Mike Franov (left) and Ulysses Whittington with the Department of Public Works unload a bear saver model trash can, one of six models being tested.

The seal of San Francisco is displayed on a soft square trash bin model at Broadway and Columbus Street.

San Francisco Public Works is testing out three custom-designed trash cans and three off-the-shelf models in a pilot program.

A high-cost beauty contest is about to start on the streets of San Francisco. The competition won’t only test the looks of the six contestants — Salt & Pepper, Slim Silhouette, Soft Square, BearSaver, Ren Bin and Open Wire Mesh — but also their performance.

The winner could be San Francisco’s next trash can.

San Francisco will try out six new models after spending 3 ½ years working on designs and $550,000 on a pilot program that seeks to fix the problems with the city’s current bins, which critics say are one culprit behind the city’s notoriously dirty streets. The green Renaissance models often overflow and are easily broken into, sometimes causing a bigger mess.

Critics slammed the Public Works department over the lengthy and expensive program while agreeing that San Francisco’s streets are unacceptably filthy. The department has defended its decisions.

As a possible replacement to the current bins, Public Works is sending three custom-designed prototypes made by local companies and three off-the-shelf models to locations around San Francisco.

Each custom prototype costs more than $10,000 — with one $11,000, another $18,800 and the third topping out at $20,900 per can. Last year the city said they would try to spend only $12,000 per prototype after pushback. Once mass-produced, each can would cost between $2,000 and $3,000 each.

Gabriel Huerta looks for items to recycle in a trash can in San Francisco.

The city spent a combined $536,000 to pay an Oakland-based industrial designer and a San Francisco manufacturer to custom-make the cans. The old trash cans cost $1,218 each in 2018.

Elected officials and residents have criticized the Public Works department’s decision to go the custom route, citing the steep prices and the delayed process. Last year, then-Supervisor Matt Haney — who’s now a state Assembly member — called the $20,000 price tag “ridiculous.” A design expert said the cost for a custom-made prototype was reasonable.

Still, in the face of criticism, the Public Works department did find cheaper options, and three other models hitting the streets this week are off-the-shelf models. One comes in at $630, another at $1,950 and and a third at approximately $2,850.

The city will put out 26 cans — five of each of the prototypes and three to four of the off-the-shelf models. Installation will finish this week. Each trash can will be in two different locations during the 60-day pilot.

San Franciscans will get the chance to give feedback on the designs using a QR code pasted on each trash can. Public Works will review feedback and land on a final design, then select the manufacturer in the fall. There is no timeline for when San Franciscans will see the more than 3,000 new cans on the street.

Public Works officials argue they wanted a custom-designed bin because the city is unique. They needed a can small enough to fit on a narrow sidewalk, secure enough so that someone couldn’t break in and with an opening slim enough so that people couldn’t reach inside to scavenge. The can had to hold a 32-gallon container, an electronic sensor that sends alerts when the bin is full and a recycling compartment on top.

Public Works spokesperson Beth Rubenstein said the right trash bin wouldn’t solve all the issues around one of the city’s “biggest complaints” — dirty streets — but it could help.

“For all the attention and issue and focus for how to make the city cleaner, to just go out and buy a can and put it out, it doesn’t seem smart, it seems foolhardy,” Rubenstein said. “It’s really important that we test cans, but as we went through the criteria of what city residents wanted, there wasn’t a can out there that successfully responded to that criteria.”

She added that the cans should last 15 to 20 years. Rubenstein said the city could possibly make money on the project because it owns the rights to the design that it could sell to other cities.

But supervisors have been skeptical of the arguments for custom cans.

“It’s always seemed a little nuts,” said Supervisor Aaron Peskin. “This is the United States of America. ... You would think there is an off-the-shelf model that fits our needs.”

Peskin also pointed out scandals that plagued the former head of Public Works Mohammed Nuru, who plead guilty to corruption charges, as part of “how the hell we got in this mess.” Nuru long resisted Peskin’s suggestion that the city try out Big Bellys, trash-compacting cans already in use by community business districts downtown.

Instead, in 2018, Nuru entered into a two-year agreement with the company Alternate Choice LLC to provide and maintain the Renaissance cans. Alternate Choice LLC is run by the son of permit expediter Walter Wong, who pleaded guilty to conspiracies to commit fraud and money-laundering. Last year, then-City Attorney Dennis Herrera suspended Walter Wong and Alternate Choice LLC from doing business with the city.

When asked last year whether corruption slowed the process to get new cans, Rubenstein said: “Not at all.”

She said Big Bellys didn’t work because they required a level of daily maintenance the city couldn’t provide or afford, were too heavy for garbage workers to lift when full, and would cost more than a mass-produced custom can.

Instead, the city spent years on custom designs and a pilot that hit a number of roadblocks. A year ago, the city said it would tentatively run the pilot in the winter, but it took longer than expected to approve the contract and the company doubled its initial estimated time to make the cans because of supply chain and staffing issues. Finally, a delivery delay meant the last couple of can designs, which were supposed to be installed Monday, won’t be on the streets until Thursday.

The bins can’t come soon enough for many.

“The bottom line is this town needs some decent trash cans,” Peskin said.

Mallory Moench (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mallorymoench

Mallory Moench is a San Francisco City Hall reporter. She joined The San Francisco Chronicle in 2019 to report on business and has also written about wildfires, transportation and the coronavirus pandemic.

She previously covered immigration and local news for the Albany Times Union and the Alabama state legislature for the Associated Press. Before that, she freelanced with a focus on the Yemeni diaspora while studying at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism.