Brands Imaging Adorns Trash Cans with Art

The fruits of neighborhood beautification efforts are often found on the sides of buildings, but Mural Arts Philadelphia thought: Why not use a canvas that’s pretty much the slum of the street – trash cans? The public art program, founded to unite artists and communities throughout Philadelphia, commissioned 30 trash can wraps from local print shop Brands Imaging.

It sounds simple, but , operations manager, says wrapping a trash can is unlike any other vinyl wrap: “These are hard to wrap because the are made out of a low-energy plastic that rejects dirt, trash, and most adhesives, so we have to clean them and wipe them down really good. Also, when installing, we can’t use normal 3M tools, so we have to feed the material into every nook and cranny to keep it from popping out.”

Brands used a Mimaki JV3-160 to print the wraps onto 3M Controltac IJ180Cv3. Each 50-square-foot wrap was laminated with 3M Scotchcal 8518 and installed in about an hour by a team of two.

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