Has Philly finally turned the tide in the war on the trash?

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker ran on making Philadelphia cleaner and greener, and is living up to that pledge — at least by the numbers.

The Office of Clean and Green Initiatives, created by Parker as a hub for one of the biggest expansions to the city’s sanitation efforts in modern history, touts these statistics:

“It’s a proactive strategy to address chronic quality-of-life issues,” Parker said at her “State of the City” address Friday. “We’re delivering on our promise.”

The city’s Sanitation Department itself is a Parker creation, sheared off from the Streets Department. A program that funded cleaning of commercial areas expanded this year, hundreds of new compacting trash cans hit the streets, and a network of hundreds of cameras meant to catch illegal dumping came online recently.

There is more to come.

Citywide cleanings, seen twice this year, will now take place two times every year. More cleaning crews are budgeted for next year, as is expanded mechanical street-sweeping.

After decades of service cuts, Philly was long the only major U.S. city to lack a comprehensive citywide street-cleaning strategy. As a result, it had garnered an unwanted reputation as one of the dirtiest cities in the nation: Filthadelphia.

Parker campaigned on sprucing up that reputation.

“We won’t stop until we’ve ended that terrible nickname once and for all,” she said.

Studies in the U.S. have linked unsanitary conditions to increased crime and fire hazards. Waste that enters water systems breaks down, introducing hard-to-eliminate pollutants, like microplastics, into drinking water supplies.

Joshua Goodman, a deputy commissioner at the New York City Department of Sanitation, said cleanliness can have less tangible effects.

“If you live in a neighborhood that has persistently dirty conditions, I can’t fault you for thinking, ‘No one cares about my community,’” he said.

The administration’s signature policy has been the expansion of PHL Taking Care of Business (TCB), which through the Commerce Department gives grants to community groups for crews to pick up litter by hand along commercial corridors.

Created by Parker as a Council member, the program saw its funding upped by Council to $10 million a year in 2023. But in her inaugural budget, Parker secured an additional $23 million over five years to expand the program, covering residential blocks and vacant lots near business strips.

Today, the top recipient is the Enon Coulter Development Corp., which receives $1,187,000 a year from TCB. That organization is controlled by Enon Tabernacle Church — the mayor’s church — and primarily cleans areas in or near West Oak Lane — where the mayor lives.

The program also funds 38 other organizations that pay 263 contracted “cleaning ambassadors” to sweep 1,933 city blocks at least once a week, up from 1,050 last year. An additional 1,153 vacant lots are also now maintained through TCB. The city plans to fund 300 more blocks by next March through grants to 15 new organizations.

According to the city, these contracted cleaning crews collectively pulled 177,302 bags of trash off the streets this year, up from 168,599 last year.

But Alex Balloon, director of the Passyunk Avenue Revitalization Corp., says the impact of the program is bigger than those numbers indicate.

His group cleans several major commercial streets in South Philly under its $665,000 annual TCB grant. After it took over a new portion of Washington Avenue last year, litter collections there gradually dropped 60%.

“The top generator of litter is visible litter,” Balloon said.

Shalimar Thomas, director of the economic development nonprofit North Broad Renaissance, said her crew of seven, working between Spring Garden and Butler Streets, picked up 21% percent less litter this year.

She agreed residents were less likely to litter when they see streets are clean.

“I think the biggest thing is changing the mindset,” she said.

Expanded street cleaning is on the docket next year.

Today, the city sends sweeper trucks to 14 areas each week from April to November, under a Kenney administration pilot. It was meant to evolve into a citywide sweeping program but has not expanded since 2022.

But the Parker administration budgeted $2.5 million to staff more sweeper trucks, and will expand to new areas next year, according to a spokesperson.

It also created a “District-Based Residential Cleaning Program” in September, attaching sweepers and cleaning crews to each Council district, and plans to dispatch new illegal-dumping crews in the spring.

The rapid-response efforts will complement 249 surveillance cameras installed this year to catch illegal dumping, with 100 more slated for next summer.

According to the city, that enforcement strategy is already starting to pay off.

Illegal-dumping cases jumped from just 13 last year to 40 this year. The combined judgments from fines in those cases amount to $3 million, up from $90,000.

The city has also begun replacing hundreds of Big Belly-brand trash cans this year, and expects to have 1,500 new compacting trash cans on city streets by next year.

The devices, which cost around $6,000, have been yanked from some areas over cost and maintenance issues. And Philadelphia, which rolled them out during former Mayor Michael Nutter’s administration, had struggled to keep aging units working.

Still, Balloon said he had noticed the difference.

“That’s a major improvement. There’s already been a reduction in illegal dumping next to the broken Big Bellies,” he said. “It’s been very popular with our merchants.”

Even with all the new proposals, Philadelphia’s operations are still a far cry from those of other large U.S. cities.

New York City doles out cleaning services to most neighborhoods at least once a week. High-density residential areas are generally cleaned four times a week, and some every day, according to Goodman, the deputy NYC sanitation commissioner.

Some outlying neighborhoods receive no street cleaning at all. Cuts to citywide cleaning services during a pandemic-era budget crunch were short-lived.

“People immediately noticed the difference,” Goodman said.

Those funds were restored. And, two years ago, NYC launched a program to put trash in containers prior to collection — distributing low-cost bins to residents and piloting on-street trash disposal points.

Thomas, from North Broad Renaissance, said she had heard generally positive reactions to the Parker administration’s focus on cleaning in Philadelphia thus far.

“Even just seeing cleaning crews in the neighborhoods has been super beneficial,” she said. “My neighbors saw guys cleaning our block and they were so excited.”

She was eager for other early initiatives to expand. The twice-weekly trash pickup program, for example, currently only serves areas south of Callowhill Street, just shy of where Thomas’ economic development agency operates.

“I would love to see more investments,” she said. “Anything you do to clean the streets is good. No one ever says, ‘I would like a dirtier street.’”

Still, some residents, even those who broadly support the goal of cleaner streets, questioned the city’s current strategy.

Mark Tinkleman, 37, was baffled when he learned that the extra trash pickup was coming to his South Philly neighborhood. The professional gardener said he wanted to see extra services prioritized for the most impoverished parts of the city first.

“Center City and South Philly have enough resources,” he said. “These are systemic problems. … And you could meet the goal of a cleaner city by addressing all of these systemic issues. More places for unhoused people to live would contribute to a cleaner city.”