A plan to remove trash cans along South Street has neighbors fuming

Eleanor Ingersoll’s first decision as executive director of the South Street Headhouse District was a bold one.

Just two days into the job, the longtime community leader and Queen Village resident announced that the business improvement organization would soon remove 34 public trash bins from district corners. Residents were dumping household trash in the red wire bins, she said — a practice known as “short dumping.” The district, which pays a private company by the bag to empty the bins, would no longer foot the bill.

“We cannot continue to pay to be the personal trash collectors of residents not willing to hold their household trash bags for weekly collection days,” she wrote in the Jan. 4 edition of the Queen Village Neighborhood Association newsletter.

Big Belly trash compactors, collected by the city weekly would still be available, Ingersoll noted. The district would also seek grants for dog waste bins. But in the newsletter, Ingersoll provided no alternative for the dozens of trash cans she sought to remove.

News that the district, chartered in 1993 partly to maintain a cleaner and safer South Street, was trashing its trash cans did not land well. Not when the iconic corridor — the district encompasses Front to 11th Streets, Headhouse Square, and Fabric Row — is still rebounding from high vacancy rates. Residents complain that the district has grown unresponsive in recent years to rising quality-of-life issues.

“If the South Street Headhouse District can’t even handle the district’s trash, what is its purpose,” asked Jonathan Wall, who lives on nearby Kater Street. “You can’t stop the tide of trash with a broom, and suddenly they’re saying they’re going to open up the floodgates by removing these bins.”

Ingersoll heard the concerns. Within 24 hours, she notified community groups that the bins would stay put while the district reassessed its decision. She is examining other cost-cutting trash measures and working with community members to develop a public education campaign about the ills of short dumping.

“I understand that one of the primary duties of the business district is to be clean and safe,” Ingersoll said in an interview. “But I also understand that the way trash was being addressed prior to me was broken and needs to be corrected.”

Each month, the district pays a private commercial cleaning company nearly $25,000 for daily trash pickup, street sweeping, and other sanitation services, Ingersoll said. That amounts to about a third of its annual $930,000 budget, raised mostly through fees paid by business owners. A significant chunk of the cost stems from the trash, furniture, and appliances residents and businesses sometimes pile next to the bins, she said.

“It seemed like there was no other way to get people’s attention,” said Ingersoll. “We became private haulers for impatient residents.”

Still, community members like Wall, a lawyer, said residents were already bearing the burden of a rising tide of trash. He and his neighbors on Kater Street, a leafy, cobblestone alley one block off South, rely on the bins as a defense against the daily deluge of debris that flows from the corridor.

“My street is already a dumping ground for South Street garbage,” Wall said. “I can’t imagine how bad it would get if the bins were removed.”

Most mornings, Wall uses a trash picker and an empty kitty litter bucket to collect the paper plates and cups, take-out containers, cigarillo wrappers, and other detritus left in the wake of South Street visitors. Syringes, used toilet paper, and discarded clothing are also often strewn about, he said.

“If the bins are full, I’ll put it in the back alley with my trash cans,” he said. “But a lot of times I don’t want to because there’s literally human waste.”

After hearing the cans were being removed, Wall wrote Ingersoll and Carlton Williams, who’s heading the city’s new Office of Clean and Green initiatives, warning that the district could face potential lawsuits from impacted citizens.

“The fact that illegal dumping is a problem in Philadelphia is not a legitimate reason for SSHD to abandon the basic function of helping to manage the unusually high volume of trash generated by this commercial corridor,” he said.

Rick Milan, founder of the iconic former South Street punk boutique, Zipperhead, and now chair of the district board, said he supported Ingersoll’s initial idea to remove the bins. Many community members mistakenly believe the city empties the bins, and do not realize the district pays.

“Maybe it was bold, and better to talk with other community leaders about educating the neighbors,” he said. “But if nothing else, it sounded the alarm.”

South Street is experiencing a critical moment, he said. After the fallout of the pandemic and the 2022 South Street mass shooting, businesses are starting to return, he said. While the street currently maintains a 10% vacancy rate, 15 new businesses are slated to open in 2024, he said.

Ingersoll, who lives two blocks off South Street with her family, was hired after the group’s longtime director stepped down last year. She’s the right person to move the district ahead, Milan said.

“I think this is a moment where we can get back to where we used to be and Eleanor is the one who can steer the ship.”

Mark Squilla, who represents the district on City Council, said some of the cans could still be removed in the future if residents and business owners keep abusing them. He said he’ll work with the district to see if costs could be reduced by partnering with the city for some services.

“It’s a work in progress,” Squilla said. “What the district is trying to do is educate people what those cans are really for, which is street trash.”

Ingersoll, who most recently headed the Queen Village neighbors group, said she began confronting short dumpers before she was officially on the clock. Like a man she recently approached while walking her dog, who was removing boxed recycling from a bin so he could fit his two bags of household trash, she said.

“He cut me off with a stream of expletives,” Ingersoll said.

On her first day at the district, Ingersoll wore gloves to dig through bags of household trash left near South Street bins. Finding mail in the bags, she reported three offenders to the police, who can issue warnings and citations.

Sheis looking into whether the district has been paying for private trash pickup outside its official boundaries and pricing out dumpsters that could cut back on hauling costs. She plans on cracking down on Airbnb owners, who often leave trash festering on the sidewalk outside of collection days.

Despite the blowback, Ingersoll sees the moment as an opportunity. A chance to renew an open dialogue with community members about the challenges facing South Street — and the role the district must play in addressing them. That’s a conversation she said has been lacking in recent years.

“I think there has been a loss of faith,” she said. “My mandate is to foster community among the district, and I am invested in doing just that. I am invested in making it work.”