Once it was obvious that the allegedly downsized staff of refuse workers would be unable to collect the garbage that piles up in the District’s public trash cans, the Department of Public Works used subtraction to resolve the problem. Instead of figuring out how to remove the garbage, they took away half the cans, thereby reducing the number of places environmentally minded citizens might deposit that pesky Ding Dong wrapper. The streets bear witness to that innovation, with boulevards dappled here and there with newly homeless trash. But D.C. residents are notoriously adaptive, and many simply hang on to their treasured discards until they find the rarest of species in this urban jungle: a common street trash can. Each of the remaining public bins has become a mini-junkyard, spreading out at the top and bottom in random ways that are futher sculpted by wind, rain, and the occasional rat patrol. You might moan about how the ubiquitous refuse represents a tear in the fabric of the city, or you could begin to see each pile as a citizen-generated sculpture, organic commentary on the power of entropy, Newton’s laws, and urban survivalism. Is it so trashy to suggest that quality of life lies in the attitude of the beholder?