The Litter Summit- Citywide cleanup on April 4th
Yesterday I got up extra early, rushed to the United Way building at 8 in the morning, and paid $24 to park for 3 hours and attend the Litter Summit hosted by Keep Philadelphia Beautiful. It was well worth all the trouble.
Keep Philadelphia Beautiful (KPB) is a non profit, local division of the national Keep American Beautiful organization. I would go into their mission, but it’s spelled out in their name. The board of directors includes the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of the streets department, a representative from Philadelphia Green, the director of Project NEAT, and a few others. The Executive Director, the face of KPB, and the woman behind much of the progress made in the last couple of years is Phoebe Coles.
Phoebe, besides the help of one intern, is more or less a one woman show, as many pointed out yesterday. Her main goal is to reduce litter and keep the streets clean. My favorite Mayor, Michael Nutter, also attended as well, and accepted an award for Philadelphia for our success in last year’s citywide cleanup.
It’s important to understand that just cleaning up other people’s litter will not keep the city clean. It’s most important to understand why people throw trash on the ground and educate people on the issues that arise from such behavior.
There are three major reasons that people litter, Mayor Jenny Stultz of Gastonia South Carolina explained at the Summit. The first is that he or she has no sense of ownership of the place they are littering. This would refer to someone who doesn’t take any pride in their own yard, neighborhood, or city let alone responsibility for the way it looks. The second is that he or she assumes there is someone who’s job it is to pick up the trash. A good example here would be people that leave their trash at their seats in a movie theater or sports arena. The third is that there is already existing trash there so instead of feeling like they are causing a problem, instead they are just adding to a problem that already existed.
In Philadelphia I believe we suffer from all three of these.
On April 4th we have our 2nd annual Citywide clean up. I urge everyone to come out and help. I will be at South Philly High School painting the fence and planting trees from 10-2 if you would like to join me.
If you have any questions or concerns about litter in your neighborhood, send them along.
In addition, there is proposed legislation about banning plastic bags and Styrofoam from our great city. Talk about a great solution to reducing litter. I hope you will all support!
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