[Tagging] Public refrigerators

[Robert Whittaker (OSM lists)]

On Tue, 25 Feb 2020 at 15:47, Markus <selfishseahorse at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've noticed that recycling:food= has been added [1] to
> amenity=recycling wiki page with the meaning "community fridge [2] to
> help reduce food waste".
>
> [1]: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Tag:amenity%3Drecycling&diff=1908674&oldid=1906084
> [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_fridge
>
> In my opinion, it's not a good idea to tag community fridges (public
> refrigerators) amenity=recycling, because containers for recycling or
> reuse are only for depositing and not for picking up. What if there
> are also containers where food can only be deposited, but not picked
> up (similar to containers for clothing donations)? We couldn't tell
> them apart any more.
>
> As we already use amenity=public_bookcase and amenity=give_box for two
> very similar facilities, it seems better to use something like
> amenity=public_refrigerator or amenity=community_fridge.

I agree with your thoughts re not using amenity=recycling. I've tagged
a couple of Community Fridges near me as

amenity=social_facility + social_facility=community_fridge

as this tagging (although not documented anywhere) mirrors that for
Clothing Banks, Food Banks and Soup Kitchens, which are listed at
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:social facility , and seem to
be related sorts of things. (Though I'm not sure how much these
community fridges are designed to provide useful items for those in
need, versus just help reduce waste versus. The balance is probably
slightly different for each implementation.)

Robert.

-- 
Robert Whittaker