Trivium

Eugène-René Poubelle

     Baron Hausmann's wholesale renovation of Paris during Napoleon III's Second Empire was undertaken in part to allow fresh air to move throughout the city - the thinking was that "miasma", or "bad air" caused disease, ill-health and epidemics such as cholera.  (It also was a concerted effort to widen the boulevards within the city in order to make it more difficult for citizens to revolt and set up barricades...ah, the French :).

     Shortly afterward, the city of Paris named their first sanitation commissioner - the handsome chap you see above. M. Poubelle was charged with cleaning the streets of refuse (human and otherwise). Prior to the renovation the streets of Paris were angled towards the centre with a trough running down the middle. This trough was water-fed and created a never ending river of refuse running through the street. This reality (apparently) is the origin of the phrase "taking the high road" - walking on the incline to avoid the muck.  M. Poubelle's solution to this problem was to insist that all buildings provide three covered containers to hold all the household refuse from the building which would then be collected by city employees and brought to the outskirts of the city. Within a very short period of time, his rubbish bins became known colloquially as Boîtes Poubelle...

which is what they remain known as today.