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In Kensington, ‘Ya Fav Trashman’ leads a unique Earth Day observance: Walk, clean, feed

“It just all kind of came together in one gumbo pot of community advancement, I guess you could say,” Terrill Haigler said of his 5K Earth Day trash walk Saturday.

Terrill Haigler, known as "Ya Fav Trashman,” gives instructions at Kensington and Lehigh Avenues before the start of a 5k Earth Day Trash Walk in Kensington on Saturday. During the walk they also distributed hot meals to those experiencing homelessness. The walk is to help raise awareness around environmental justice in brown and Black communities.
Terrill Haigler, known as "Ya Fav Trashman,” gives instructions at Kensington and Lehigh Avenues before the start of a 5k Earth Day Trash Walk in Kensington on Saturday. During the walk they also distributed hot meals to those experiencing homelessness. The walk is to help raise awareness around environmental justice in brown and Black communities.Read moreHEATHER KHALIFA / Staff Photographer

What he believes was Philadelphia’s first 5K Earth Day Trash Walk came to Terrill Haigler in a moment of morning inspiration.

One day, Haigler, better known as “Ya Fav Trashman,” thought about how he could combine trash pickup, helping the homeless, and a bit of fitness. Coinciding with Earth Day weekend, the event hopefully would bring volunteers from across the city to walk through Kensington, a Philly neighborhood beset with drug and homelessness issues, and clean up while basking in the sun.

The idea came to fruition Saturday morning, when 200 volunteers picked up 8 tons of trash, collected 503 bags of litter, and distributed 200 hot meals to those experiencing homelessness in Kensington, all while laughing and smiling along the 3.2-mile route.

“One day it just hit me,” said Haigler, a former sanitation worker turned community activist. “I’ve had 19 different jobs over the last 12 years of my life. So trying to combine all the things that I think I’m good at or that I think are fun or that I think are engaging.

“It just all kind of came together in one gumbo pot of community advancement, I guess you could say.”

Starting at 8:30 a.m. with a warm-up session for volunteers to limber up for their walk and trash pickup, the event set off from East Lehigh and Kensington Avenues, said Haigler. Volunteers, wearing running sneakers and brandishing trash pickers and bags, walked, jogged, and skipped through the streets while cleaning up.

Information tables were set up along the route, providing educational material for causes such as voter registration and first-time homeownership, and assorted swag for volunteers.

As part of the event, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society had pledged to plant a tree in a Black or brown community in Philadelphia over the next five years for every bag of trash collected. Haigler was “ecstatic” to be able to tell the society that more than 500 trees would be planted.

It was all part of Haigler’s push to create long-lasting change in Philadelphia, tackling food insecurity, homelessness, and sanitation work.

“To me, impact means a resounding effect and not something that’s just in the ‘right now.’ That’s what ultimate impact is to me.”

The Saturday morning jaunt is the latest in Haigler’s constant push to raise awareness of what sanitation workers do to try to keep Philly streets clean and to help his city in creative ways.

Haigler first came to prominence at the height of the pandemic, when garbage began to pile up as sanitation workers called out sick due to COVID-19. Haigler, then a sanitation worker who mainly worked in the Frankford area, understood residents’ frustrations and saw an opportunity to teach them about the job and all its difficulties and stinky idiosyncrasies.

Creating an Instagram with his now iconic nickname, Haigler became a sensation, posting videos and hosting Instagram live sessions where he answered residents’ questions and regaled them with tales of some of the grimiest pickups he’d encountered in his job.

Soon, Haigler turned from spreading awareness to community activism, holding a food drive for frontline workers who worked amid surging COVID cases and raising $32,000 for PPE for his fellow sanitation workers. In February 2021, Haigler stepped down from his job as a sanitation worker and dedicated himself full-time to community advancement.

Saturday’s event was close to Haigler’s heart, as one of his first routes as a sanitation worker was in Kensington. Many of the volunteers were energized by the opportunity to help clean up in the neighborhood and had already approached him about doing similar events every year.

“Hopefully it gets bigger and better and we won’t do it in the same spot every year, but we can affect the entire Philly,” said Haigler. “I definitely have the support of Philadelphia to do this for Earth Day next year.”

On the online registration he had set up, Haigler had expressed hope for 2,000 participants.

Asked if he was disappointed to fall short of that goal, his response was predictably upbeat.

“Not at all, I always swing for the fences lol,” he texted. “I got 10% of my goal next year I’m going for 40%. Any Impact is still Impact.”