Private trash collection limited pileups in some neighborhoods during the strike

Around Rittenhouse Square on Tuesday, people shopped for produce at a small farmer’s market, sat on benches reading books, and walked dogs. A few tourists strolled through the sunny park. There was no garbage in sight.

In an industrial stretch of Kensington, two city-provided dumpsters were overflowing on Rosehill Street between Clearfield Street and Allegheny Avenue. Trash bags lined the sidewalk and stretched across half a block — with the smell spreading even farther. A steady stream of people arrived to unload more bags from vans and the beds of pickup trucks.

In a city that has pockets of extreme wealth but also high levels of deep poverty, it is perhaps no surprise that the municipal workers’ strike that ended early Wednesday morning had uneven impacts depending where you live.

But the different experiences serve as a reminder that when city services slow — or, in the case of a strike, grind to a halt — some neighborhoods, especially those with business improvement districts, have a more robust infrastructure in place to pick up the slack.

In Nicetown-Tioga, the community development group Called to Serve rented a truck to pick up trash from small businesses and residents to try to keep rodents at bay.

“Our cleaning staff are burned out,” Amelia Price, the nonprofit’s corridor manager, said this week, adding that workers were proud to give back to the community. “Business owners are calling left and right.”

Keeping the area clean is a taller order for relatively small groups like Called to Serve, which has 13 employees, than it is for, say, the Center City District — the nonprofit business improvement district with a $32 million budget and more than 100 sweepers. The district is mostly funded by commercial property owners downtown and provides cleaning and other services.

The city will resume regular trash collection next week, officials said Wednesday, directing residents to either hold on to their trash or take it to one of six sanitation centers in the meantime.

The contrast was not just a function of long-standing social problems. It was also driven by the fact that most commercial buildings, restaurants, and big apartment complexes use private haulers to collect their trash. Under city law, the Philadelphia Department of Sanitation provides curbside pickup only to residential buildings with six or fewer units.

So neighborhoods with a lot of large multifamily buildings or other commercial properties, such as Rittenhouse and Society Hill, simply rely less on public trash pickup. Meanwhile in less densely populated areas of the city, like Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill, garbage can more easily be stored out of sight.

To be sure, trash still piled up in affluent neighborhoods. Further south in Center City, for example, “where it is just a lot more like smaller, single-family homes, that’s where the situation tends to be uglier,” said Nathaniel Margolies, president of the Center City Residents Association, because there are fewer multifamily buildings using private haulers.

Business improvement districts (BIDs) — organizations like Center City District and Old City District that promote revitalization in commercial corridors, with funding from property owners — helped manage the spillover effects of the strike by fulfilling their usual street-cleaning duties.

City Councilmember Mark Squilla said these organizations helped facilitate communication and resources for managing trash accumulation.

“I found that to be a major help and asset during challenging times,” said Squilla, whose district includes areas stretching from South Philadelphia to Port Richmond.

The Center City District said that workers had been operating as usual but that their tasks had grown in scale as more trash ended up on the streets, especially as trash cans in the district overflowed. All that extra refuse meant the BID’s dumpster at Eighth and Callowhill Streets had to be emptied far more frequently during the strike.

The East Passyunk Avenue BID in South Philly works with a partner organization to provide “pan and broom” litter-cleaning services six days a week, said executive director Katie Hanford. Cleaning crews were unable to remove large bags of residential or commercial trash, she said, but they made sure “pedestrian paths remain[ed] clear of litter and obstructions.”

Likewise in Old City, the local business improvement district’s role “is to make things tidy, not take trash away,” said executive director Job Itzkowitz.

“The business improvement district mission is clean and safe, but the role is to supplement city services, not replace city services,” he said, adding that the Old City District’s cleaners are organized with a different union.

Still, having that kind of an organization makes a difference, said City Councilmember Anthony Phillips, who represents the 9th District in Northwest and Northeast Philly. Phillips said that while his district has community organizations — which have been helpful — it lacks a business improvement district.

“When you don’t have a BID, you’re pretty much reliant on the city’s workforce and what they’re doing,” Phillips said.

He said Tuesday that his office had received calls from neighbors about the city’s temporary trash dump sites being overloaded with rubbish. The city was “doing the best they can to monitor the dump sites,” Phillips said, but he added he was concerned about impacts such as public health, air quality, or rodent infestation.

In Kensington, a “huge volume of trash” piled up, said Casey O’Donnell, CEO of community development group Impact Services, which contracts with the city as part of the Taking Care of Business Clean Corridors Program.

He praised residents for using designated dumpster sites. “Where there is massive overflow, people [were] putting trash on blocks that are industrial or low traffic and not residential,” he said.

In other neighborhoods, like South Philadelphia at Broad Street and Snyder Avenue, the city dump sites routinely overflowed onto sidewalks and bike lanes.

Some civic leaders said they wanted to do what they could to keep their neighborhoods clean without undermining the striking union — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 33 — or taking sides in the standoff.

Price, of Called to Serve, said her community had a rodent infestation last year and she didn’t want to see that happen again. She said she also wanted to “lighten the load” for sanitation workers when they returned to work.

Price said she had encouraged residents not to set their trash out on the curb: “What kind of example are we showing our children by saying, ‘Let’s let the trash sit out there’?”