An analysis of the history and present struggles of one of the dirtiest cities in America.
According to busybee.com Philadelphia is the 5th dirtiest metro area in the United States overall (a rank that includes several variables including population density, air pollution, litter, pests, among others) and 4th overall in terms of the amount of litter. How did Philly get this way? And how come we are still stuck living in filth in the 21st century?
BillyPenn wrote an excellent article outlining the history of filth and efforts to combat a dirty city. Instead of restating the main elements of the article, I provide a timeline of some of those historic events below, including how city cleanliness might have been perceived during those times.
One of the major hurdles in the way of a cleaner Philly is the fact that there is no city mandated street cleaning services. In fact, Philly is one of the largest cities that doesn’t regularly clean it streets through municipal services.
There are other problems too:
Lack of trash cans outside of center city. There are very few garbage cans on the street corners. There are only a few public garbage cans in parks and in retail/commercial areas.
Trash collectors.I have no idea what it's like to be a trash collector but they seem to be in a hurry and not too concerned with the amount of trash that gets in to their truck, or what the street looks like when they are done. I get it - I believe the mentality is getting as much done, as fast as possible, and going home. The unfortunate part is that they end up throwing a lot of trash which ends up back on the street. Nobody likes being told how to do their job, but perhaps there could be someone playing clean up after the collectors throw all the trash around (mostly in the back of the truck). I'd pay more in taxes to hire that person. One might say that you could change their job description to include picking up the litter that they drop.
Lack of lids for trash containers. Philly can get pretty windy with the narrow streets and corridors creating wind tunnels. Put your uncovered recycling out and then it gets whipped around the street.
“The streets are already trash” attitude. I had a guy on in Philly say this to me when I confronted him about tossing a wrapper on the sidewalk, and he had a point. My behavioral colleagues will cringe at me describing this as an "attitude", but what I'm saying is that people are more likely to litter in a place that is already littered. Some call it the "broken-window" theory, which I am skeptical of, but there has been some research to show that littered and unkempt environments can influence more of the same behavior. I've also experienced this first-hand in a different way - we recently had our water mains replaced on our block, which involved our street being torn up for a good 6 months. The result were the removal of lead pipes, but also a repaved street and brand new sidewalks - our street looked really nice (as good as a concrete jungle can get). I noticed that the trash guys were more likely to pick up fallen trash after our street was renewed. This could be just bias on my part, but I do think there is something to it.
Local business ignoring the problem. For the most part, storefronts are trash piles, especially on street corners in South Philly.
What would make Philly Cleaner?
Mandated street cleaning (am i hitting this point home enough?). A team of people could work all day to clean the streets of litter and trash but there is a layer of grime that builds up that needs special attention. Recently there has been some news that street sweeping may come back to Philly - I'll believe it when I see it.
Local businesses participating in cleaning up their storefronts. Chances are you're more likely to enter a business that doesn't have trash strewn about the storefront.
Enforcement. Yes, Philadelphia law states that littering is a finable offense. Additionally, Philly has SWEEP which, as a resident for almost 8 years, I have NEVER seen in action. Supposedly, they focus more on commercial lots, but I still think this whole program is a myth. Enforcement does work as a deterrent, and can influence behavior, however catching people in the act is a logistical problem.
What you can do?
Don't throw trash on the ground. Easy right? Confront people if you see them litter - this should be any easy thing for locals to do. There are usually no consequences to littering so why not provide one? Ask them why they did that and to pick up whatever they tossed and to throw
Sign up for notinphilly.org and volunteer to clean up your street once a week. This is one of the best ways to be involved. You can connect with other people through the site and organize clean ups like me and my friends have. The best days to clean up your block are either the day before trash collection or the day after.
Get a lid for your trashcan and recycling bin. I've heard people making makeshift lids by cutting holes in their bins and then zip tying a cover to the bin. That's some Philly ingenuity right there.
If you don't have a lid and don't want to make one, try stuffing loose recyclable materials (junk mail, flyers, loose sheets of paper, scratch-offs) into a larger item to prevent them from flying around your block. E.g. use an empty cereal box to stuff all your junk mail.
Use Philly 311 to report dumping sites and other large objects (mattresses, empty lots, etc)
Other ideas
Understand why certain areas are worse than others. We spent some dollars on this website that shows which areas in the city are the most littered. This provides an opportunity to learn about those communities and environments and some possible root causes for the amount of trash in those areas. Additionally, you can use that site to determine more information about your block, to see if you have a block captain, and what neighborhood associate you belong to - all good resources to have if you want to get involved in cleaning up Philly.
Let's use drones to measure our progress. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Drones take great birds-eye pics so why not use them to determine if we are making progress.
Let's train pigeons to pick up cigarette butts. Cigarette butts are, by far, the most frequent object that is littered, and found on the streets. There are some solutions to this but I'm going to consider those a lost cause. Some applications of training birds to pick up cigarette butts for food rewards have been done in Europe. Why not train all the pigeons we have to help us clean up the city. If someone gives me money, I will train the pigeons.
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