Believe It Or Not, Philadelphia Is Getting Cleaner

Philadelphia is getting cleaner — really! / Photograph by Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress; illustration via Getty Images

A few years ago, my wife and I moved into a house in South Philly. It’s a great house, full of light and warmth and laughter, a home where our two kids will, we hope, spend their whole childhoods.

It wasn’t until we’d moved in that I realized it’s also downwind from Pat’s and Geno’s, which means that a tumbleweed of beefy wrappers billows down the block daily, winding around car tires and jamming storm drains. Some days, this morass is joined by my neighbor’s stack of Pick-3 tickets, and on others by a frankly impressive fleet of Modelo cans. A few times a month, I head out with a pair of gloves, my trash claw, and a pumped-up sense of civic pride, and I clean my block.

During these excursions, I’ve noticed one thing missing from the maw: plastic bags. In just the first year following the city’s ban on their distribution in July 2021, an estimated 200 million bags (yes, you read that correctly) were suppressed from the system, clearing up storm drains and relieving our water management system. (Don’t believe me? Head to your nearest creek, where plastic bags once regularly dotted the banks post-flooding.) And this is just a small piece of my rose-colored optimism.

Take the Philadelphia Parking Authority, an agency previously disconnected from what most Philadelphians would consider “good government.” Since Rich Lazer took over the agency 14 months ago, the PPA has stretched its purview, pitching in on quality-of-life issues across the city. One big result? The agency’s tow trucks have hauled away more than 2,200 illegally parked tractor-trailers, unregistered vehicles, and cars without license plates from neighborhood streets.

“Here’s a truck or tractor-trailer parked on a block, with graffiti all over it, and some kid’s gotta come out every day and play and look at this monstrosity on the block,” Lazer told me last summer. “We can get rid of it and move it.”

Other little things have caught my eye. While imperfect, the city’s street-sweeping pilot program has done wonders for the blocks south of my house. (Expand the program, Mayor Parker!) The decision to split Streets and Sanitation into two departments has been lauded by green advocates and will help streamline processes and provide each department with the attention it deserves. In late February, Parker hinted that additional funds may be headed to Licenses and Inspections and PHL Taking Care of Business, which helps maintain commercial corridors across the city. And she’s pledged to crack down on the scourge that is illegal dumping.

Nic Esposito, director of policy and engagement for Circular Philadelphia and the former director of the zero-waste-and-litter cabinet under former mayor Jim Kenney, doesn’t wholly share my enthusiasm. It’s his job to push the city to do better, so I understand his reticence. One place he does see reason for optimism, though? Compost. Nearly a third of the city’s waste is organic — food and brush and leaves and other stuff that used to be alive. Last year, the city lobbied the state to create an urban composting permit, which means that instead of us sending compost to some faraway lot outside the city, it can now be processed in smaller facilities throughout the city. Adding curbside city-supported compost collection — facilitated by Philly companies like Bennett or Circle — could work wonders, as would using vacant lots across the city for composting.

“We have the growth potential with our composting companies to get this contract out to them to handle the food waste,” Esposito says. “That would be a huge, huge leap forward for reducing the amount of waste going into the landfills.”

So, does my block still get messy? Yeah, of course; I recently pulled a full hoodie out of my corner drain. But I’m hopeful, which makes my cleaning expeditions a little more tolerable.

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Published as “Clean(er) Streets” in the April 2024 issue of Philadelphia magazine.