Foundation puts up $5 million to spark innovation around illegal dumping

Avarisse Crawford has been helping oversee a five-man cleaning crew in Hunting Park-East Tioga for a limited years now but she s still occasionally amazed by the sheer volume and variety of junk that regularly turns up on the neighborhood s streets and vacant lots The guys come in they re talking about all of these large things that they re unable to collect and that really ranges she commented a note of incredulity creeping into her voice On Old York Road a insufficient months ago someone left a boat A whole boat What exactly does one do with a boat left to rot on a random stretch of road We call all the time with the illegal dumping that we see Does something happen Naw noted Crawford who is chief of staff at North a neighborhood revitalization group What ended up happening is that people stripped it for what they could to sell and then our neighbors at the corner really decided to take it in and get rid of it properly A boat discovered on Old York Road near Pike Street is among the various items illegally dumped on the streets of Hunting Park in latest months Courtesy of North Bulk of the larger items that North s cleanup crew comes across are much less intriguing she announced trash bags full of smashed up drywall living room furniture old cabinetry toilets sinks pipes and the like Crawford acknowledged that the city has been trying to crack down on the widespread dumping of construction waste tires and other debris as part of the Mayor Cherelle Parker s -month-old Clean and Green initiative But she revealed the effort doesn t seem to have changed much in North s area so far so the group is trying to innovate on its own With help from a three-year grant from the William Penn Foundation North plans to expand the work of its cleaning crew install surveillance cameras at a scarce dumping hotspots and try out something that trash activists have long argued for direct assistance for small waste haulers so they can afford the high minimum fees charged by the city s big waste recovery centers We have started talking with a legal dumping facility to figure out how could we truly transform behavior and get people to start dumping legally she noted The grant is funding the subsidies instead of it coming out of people s pockets Because oftentimes they don t have enough to meet that minimum Keeping junk from hitting the streets The William Penn Foundation launched its grant venture on illegal dumping last year in part because staff noticed increasing coverage of dumping in local media declared Nathan Boon a senior scheme officer at the foundation They also observed the expansion of advocacy groups like the Trash Academy an environmental justice collective and Circular Philadelphia which promotes recycling and reuse of materials The need was also proven by a Pew Lenfest poll that exposed that of residents surveyed thought the city should prioritize reduction of illegal dumping As the foundation researched the dilemma it became clear that it was significant to try to address the underlying reasons people dump on the streets Boon reported There are a couple gripping dynamics that emerged from our learning going out into the field with site visits and from talking to society members he reported Even if you succeed in cleaning up your block and putting up the signs and the cameras and the lights so the dumpers don t come back to your block there s nothing to stop them from moving literally two or three blocks over It s necessary but insufficient to pick the trash the dumping up off the street The real focus is preventing it from hitting the street in the first place he declared Dumping that led to lawsuits by the city of Philadelphia included incidents on the block of Warnock Street in April at left on the block of West Glenwood Avenue in June center and on North th Street in March right City of Philadelphia Billy Penn In February the foundation awarded nine grants worth a combined million They re funding projects ranging from new neighborhood garbage containers in the West Girard corridor to a city-run constituents teaching campaign to identify root causes and solutions to illegal dumping in South and West Philadelphia The recipients include two environmental organizations PennFuture will do research and lobby the city to sharply boost enforcement and enlarge the Police Department s environmental crimes unit The Clean Water Fund will partner with Trash Academy to increase inhabitants awareness and set up a legal dump available only to small waste haulers Empowered CDC plans to use its grant to establish two legal dump sites for residents in Southwest Philadelphia Fairmount CDC will install outdoor garbage enclosures boost enforcement do neighborhood engagement and plant trees while the West Philadelphia Corridor Collaborative will contract with Trashmitter an Uber for trash to collect waste promptly from businesses Now commercial trash bags can pile up on curbs for days while awaiting pickup turning into hotspots that attract more trash Boon revealed Folks are like All right I m trying to kind of halfway do it appropriately I m making specific effort But we ve just got to lower the obstructions a little bit for folks and meet them where they are Boon commented Two grants totaling million will go to the city Parks Rec will hire four staffers to focus on anti-dumping efforts in Tacony Creek Park Cobbs Creek Park Mifflin Square and Parkside and the Clean Green office will hold workshops and cleanup events in coordination with SEAMAAC and the Overbrook Environmental Development Center A novel approach to an old issue Crawford noted North is working on different approaches to enable the small haulers responsible for much of the neighborhood s street dumping to instead take their materials to Burns Co a large recycling and waste recovery business in North Philly One part is a straight subsidy to help with dumping fees which vary by the weight of a hauler s load but have a minimum at Burns If there were no minimum plenty of small haulers would be willing to pay or whatever their load weighs out at and North is considering completely paying the difference to keep the trash off the streets Crawford stated Our idea is to have signage with a QR code that allows them to receive a voucher to go dump legally We re going to be doing that with signage at the hotspots and then also flyering she announced Our crew is out there every day cleaning the streets and they re great ambassadors They see the people with the big trucks they see the people who could potentially illegally dump or who just know people in that industry North s cleaning crew mowed and cleared a vacant lot on st Street between Tioga and Ontario streets The four-man group is responsible for maintaining about lots June Emma Lee WHYY North has also talked to Burns staff about having the company set up occasional no-minimum days when it will charge less to accept small loads Crawford revealed When we met with them the first time that is something that they were trying to figure out if they could possibly do she disclosed I think us coming to the table put selected pressure on them to really figure it out This summer we ll be having a follow-up meeting to really put everything concretely on paper Boon described the project as a novel approach that requirements to be tested while noting that Burns itself sees a lot of illegal dumping outside its property and has an incentive to find a key A subsidy can maybe lower the barrier for these small-time haulers to doing the right thing make it worth their while to stand in line to wait and appropriately dispose he revealed Helping residents overcome obstructions As in Hunting Park-East Tioga illegal dumping is also a huge matter across the broad swath of the city where Empowered Population Evolution Corporation operates including Point Breeze Southwest Philadelphia and southern West Philly Hot spots include areas around John Bartram High School wooded areas in Eastwick the abandoned Pepper Middle School site and even the road near the city s sanitation convenience center a legal dumpsite for residential trash and recycling on rd Street near Passyunk Avenue They close at o clock before people certainly get off work People eventually do have an overflow of trash at times and so people end up just dumping it right there revealed Isaiah Martin Empowered CDC s president So we get tires we get construction we get debris we get residential We get it all The William Penn Foundation awarded the nonprofit nearly over three years to reduce illegal dumping not so much from small commercial haulers but from residents who faces barricades to proper disposal of their household trash he reported They either one don t know where to go or two cannot physically access the places to go Martin disclosed Most of of the time it s about affordability especially with dumping rates the way they are An assist from Ya Fav Trashman The project aims to create two legal -hour dumpsites for residents One will be at the th Street Gateway a lot at the intersection of th Lindbergh Boulevard and Elmwood Avenue that Empowered CDC Bartram s Garden the Philadelphia Housing Authority and other partners have been working to beautify Last September they installed a series of colorful eco-murals by artist Kala Hagopian on the lot turning it into an open-air art gallery Empowered is now preparing to install a dumpster with an enclosure decorated with murals by Fortress Arts Academy students along with signage and surveillance cameras meant to warn off commercial dumpers he stated Empowered CDC s th Street Gateway lot features murals by artist Kala Hagopian Empowered will install a citizens trash receptacle for residents there later this year September Courtesy Kala Hagopian We want to make sure that we re not bringing the society down but rather we re uplifting it he announced So that it s not just like Hey a dumpster in the middle of the street but rather Hey this is for the immediate locality to put their excess residential waste Trash to Treasure a nonprofit founded by clean streets advocate Ya Fav Trashman aka Terrill Haigler will regularly empty the dumpster and take the trash to a waste recovery center Martin noted Empowered s organization of neighborhood ambassadors will let nearby residents know about the dumpster prevent the lot from getting blighted and monitor illegal dumping in Southwest Philadelphia generally Empowered CDC s Cecil Street Garden in Kingsessing Empowered CDC The organization hopes to install a second enclosed dumpster at Cecil Street Garden a -year-old population garden at th Street and Kingsessing Avenue and eventually at more sites around the neighborhood particularly if it can find additional funds Martin disclosed The William Penn Foundation grant sounds like a really big number until you get into the nitty gritty of everything he disclosed Then you realize art is not cheap wood isn t cheap dumpsters aren t cheap pickup isn t cheap safety isn t cheap staff isn t cheap trash cans aren t cheap drivers aren t cheap We re definitely making it stretch to the best of our abilities and definitely looking at other avenues of support for this project he reported The post Foundation puts up million to spark innovation around illegal dumping appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY