Looking like fugitives from a factory floor, at least 1,000 55-gallon drums dotted Central Park in the 1980s, marring what may be the greatest invented landscape in America.

They were big — not to mention unsightly — but not big enough to contain all the cans, bottles, cups, napkins, newspapers, magazines, paper bags, pizza boxes, hot-dog wrappers and other refuse from 12 million visitors a year. Trash piled up in them and around them.

To help keep up with the overflowing cans, rear-loading garbage trucks lumbered back and forth like dinosaurs across lawns and meadows, hills and valleys, paths and walkways. It was a brutish way to treat what was supposed to be a green gem. No wonder the park felt out of control.

Today, Central Park is a far different place. The number of visitors has soared to 42 million visitors annually. They generate 2,000 tons of trash and 58 tons of recyclables a year.