About Garbage Goat
Spokane’s Riverfront Park contains a goat that has spent more than fifty years eating garbage. The metal sculpture does not chew, digest, or move, but it does have an internal vacuum powerful enough to suck small lightweight pieces of litter through its mouth.
Artist Paula Turnbull created the Garbage Goat for Expo ’74, Spokane’s world’s fair. The work fit the event’s environmental theme by making litter disposal entertaining. Visitors place a small wrapper or similar object near the goat’s mouth, press the button, and watch the trash suddenly vanish inside.
The goat is not designed for cans, bottles, or heavy objects. Its specialty is the sort of lightweight litter that might otherwise end up blowing around the park. According to the City of Spokane, generations of children have grown up feeding it.
Many public sculptures ask visitors not to touch them. This one expects interaction and performs a useful municipal task in return. Spokane could have installed another trash can, but a steel goat with a vacuum stomach has proved much harder to forget.