By Jack Tomczuk
Twice-a-week trash pickup has arrived for much of North Philadelphia, parts of Kensington, Fishtown and Northern Liberties.
Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration expanded the initiative this week to an area bounded by Vine Street and Hunting Park Avenue west of Broad Street; east of Broad, the zone extends from Vine to Glenwood Avenue, C Street and the CSX railroad tracks.
The city’s two-day-a-week garbage collection program launched in late 2024 in Center City and South Philadelphia. Administration officials said the areas selected so far have high population density, a proliferation of multi-family housing and limited places to store their waste.
“Sometimes people think that everyone has a backyard to store trash,” Parker said Monday during an announcement event in Kensington. “It is not the case. That’s not standard operating procedure for all neighborhoods in the city.”
Officials hope the additional pickup day discourages residents from throwing bags on street corners, in vacant lots or around city-maintained trash cans to free up space in their homes. Steps away from Monday’s news conference, garbage, including household items, piled alongside the CSX tracks that run parallel to Tusculum and Gurney streets.
“Unfortunately, people take matters into their own hands because they don’t have other options,” said Carlton Williams, director of the city’s Office of Clean and Green Initiatives. “Well, today we’re giving them those options by offering a second collection day.
“Once one person does it, everybody else begins to try to do it. This cumulative effect then creates a dumping spot, and all of a sudden you see those contractors and so forth start to dump it because they think this is okay to do in our city.”
The Department of Sanitation began twice-a-week collection in December 2024, and, since then, there has been a 20% drop in 311 complaints for illegal dumping in South Philadelphia, according to Williams.
“There’s a learning curve of folks that have to be educated on when to put trash out,” said City Councilmember Mark Squilla, whose 1st District covers sections of South Philadelphia, Center City, Kensington and the River Wards. “But overwhelmingly, the people love two-day-a-week trash pickup.”
Beginning this week, anyone in the North Philadelphia-based zone with a normal Monday pickup will also be able to set out their trash for sanitation trucks on Thursday. A Tuesday collection will correspond with a second trash day on Friday. Trucks will come on Saturday for those with Wednesday pickups. Second collections for Thursday and Friday will occur on Monday and Tuesday, respectively.
Recycling will only be picked up once a week on the traditional collection day, and Philadelphians are prohibited from mixing recyclable materials with trash, officials said. No second collections will occur on weeks that include a city-observed holiday.
The same rules apply regarding how much waste can be set out — up to eight bags or four 32-gallon containers and no more than two bulky items, such as furniture, according to the administration.
Williams said the administration budgeted $19 million to buy 60 new trash compactors and hire additional employees to support the twice-a-week pickup initiative.
The program is part of Parker’s wider focus on a cleaner Philadelphia; the strategy has also included investing millions in efforts to have crews sweep every city block and straighten up commercial corridors.
On Monday, she reiterated her desire to retire the “Filthadelphia” moniker, a pledge she has repeated since taking office two years ago.
“You should see and you should be feeling that we’re doing something different by going to war with the status quo in the city of Philadelphia,” Parker said.