philly

Last Wednesday, Lady and I went to the Municipal Services Building (across the street from City Hall at 15/Arch) for an exciting talk given by the Streets Department. At the front of the PhillySTAT, room 1450, sat Deputy Mayor for Transportation and Utilities Rina Cutler; Streets Commissioner Clarena Tolson and Deputy Streets Commissioner Carlton Williams. Facing them was a room full of about 35 people from all over the city.

The Streets Department called the meeting after a PhillySTAT meeting from 2 weeks ago where they outlined the drastic measures they'd have to take to meet the Mayor's goal of a 30% budget cut for the department. Commissioner Tolson noted right at the top of the meeting that cutting all things like maintenance of traffic lights converted to flashing yellow instead of full operation; weekly trash collection and pothole filling, the 30% budget cut still wouldn't be met. What a way to start off the meeting, eh?

Tolson went on to say that the BigBelly trashcans [I wrote about them here] the City tested in conjunction with the CCD [press release] would be a good investment to bring costs down in the long run. The BigBelly compacter would reduce the amount of crew pickups from 17x a week to 5x a week if all goes as planned. They didn't mention whether or not every single of the old wire mesh trashcans would be replaced with the $3,500 trashcans or if they'd be spaced out even further than the trashcans are currently. I've been appalled at the lack of trashcans in Philly ever since moving here over 5 years ago. I'm used to having 2 to 4 trashcans at each intersection, but in Philly, you're lucky if you find 1 every few blocks let alone every intersection. Philly's use of the old completely open-top wire mesh trashcans is also ridiculous; they lead to trash being blown down streets if a gust blows by. Alternative side slot trashcans not only are wind resistant, but they also discourage larger bags of trash being tossed into them.

I really like Deputy Mayor Rina Cutler. She's a no bullshit, cut to the fucking chase kind of person. I guess you'd have to be while overseeing the Streets Department (she's worked in various managerial capacities in Boston and San Francisco). She very bluntly said that

The City is dirty – it is trashy

While everyone in the room nodded in agreement. She noted that since 2000, the Streets Department's staff has been cut by 400 jobs. Litter collection, as a result, was drastically reduced which has a snowball effect and at this point, I don't know if it can be reversed with a 10% or 20% cut let alone a draconian 30% cut in their budget.

The big topic among people with their ear to the ground on budget-related matters (all 8 of you) is the newly proposed yearly trash collection fee. At the PhillySTAT meeting, it was a $5/wk fee ($260/yr). While people are outraged that they'd have to pay for something that's free – it totally isn't. What the fuck do people think they're paying for when they pay city taxes? Chroist. $260 over the course of a year isn't a deal breaker to most, but to many it tightens the belt to the brink of cutting out life's necessities (SEPTA passes, wardrobe purchases, medication…) and the Streets Department is working to make things work for everyone. Revealed at this meeting were more details and background on the Streets Department's rationale on their new plan.

Cutler said that across the United States, there are currently about 7,000 cities, towns and municipalities using a Pay-as-You-Throw program. A PYT program means you pay for the stuff you throw out. Whether it be a per bag fee, per pound fee or some other measurement. The PYT fee would be in addition to the general sanitation fee which Cutler said wouldn't be as high as the $260/yr number initially put out a couple of weeks ago. This, in theory, would have people thinking more about how much they're throwing out into landfills each week as recycling pickup would still be free. That way, people, once again in theory, would recycle more and throw out less. That results in the City saving money on landfill dumping (about $65/ton) and they'd make up about $40/ton recycling with the difference per ton (recycling currently costs the City roughly $25/ton).

Cutler added that incentive-based programs could be used to further encourage recycling say, with $5 coupons for recycling certain amounts of material each week.

All this would end up generating, in theory, $85M a year.

With this, the Streets Department would become a stand-alone enterprise and be removed from the City's General Fund. In other words, $85M a year would be freed up in the City's budget to spend on other things – like saving the libraries from ever closing.

Cutler went on to explain a couple of the models used nationwide. First was a flat fee model where a single fee, say $5/wk, was to cover everything. No per bag or per pound limit on trash. No limit on trash pickup. No mandatory baseline for recycling. This, Cutler explained, had a general increase in recycling and less trash being picked up, but it all leveled out over time after hitting a plateau.

Option Two is the yearly fee (proposed <$260/yr) plus a per bag charge. Bags would be sold at all local stores which carry garbage bags. They'd be manufactured and approved by the City and each private citizen would go out and buy and use as many bags as they'd like with a cut of the money going back to the City. With this method, people really think about how much they throw out as they'd be paying extra for the 30 gallon bags each week – and yes, the only approved size would be a large 30 gallon size. This, Cutler said, would bring the recycling rate up to 30% within one year. Philly's current rate is something around 6% or so the last time I checked. The national average for cities, I believe, is 14% or so. Philly sucks when it comes to recycling (and don't even get me started on what they even bother recycling in comparison to other cities – only 1 & 2 plastic bottles with necks!!!!???).

To account for those who cannot afford the bags, rebates/coupons would be given out for bags. Cutler did not say how much the per bag charge would be nor did she give a ballpark amount.

The floor was opened up to the crowd which had swelled to about 50 within 30 minutes of the start of the meeting. Nancy from the CCD had a question about enforcement of the new trash bags and collection of monies. Cutler replied by saying that she was the former Executive Director of the PPA and she was very good at collecting money.

Stephanie, a cat-loving resident of Philly, said "a piece of her died" at the thought of purchasing plastic bags for trash. She asked whether the City could create official stickers to place on non-plastic trash bags (like what one can do with recyclables). Cutler said that other cities had tried the sticker method, but that they were too easily counterfeitted and lots of money was lost. Cities that originally used the sticker method were all changing over to the plastic bag model.

Cutler noted that small businesses would be absorbed into the "household" category as they don't put out too much trash on a weekly basis. Larger businesses might be charged in the ballpark of $300/yr for trash collection.

Maurice Sampson of RecycleNOW (whose organization sent me the email alerting me of the meeting), asked what exactly the sanitation fee would cover. Cutler said it would cover all Fleet and workmans compensation further freeing up monies from the General Fund.

A lady from Mt. Airy said she conducted a poll (now, I love the mindset of crunchy Mt. Airy folk, but good god, can they be annoying; there, I said it) and people wanted smaller bags; a Fairmount Park composting program and a bottle deposit bill passed in PA Congress. Cutler said that the smaller bags were out of the question, there would only be one bag and people would have to use the larger bags. I got really annoyed at this lady's opposition because I'm making the assumption that she's got a good deal of space in Mt. Airy – more than most densely populated living Center City, South Philly and West Philly residents at least – and she has the room to store a 30 gallon bag on her property and fill it up until she has enough to put it out for trash without losing sleep over putting an unfilled bag.

Cutler said that they'd look into a larger scale composting program, but that curbside composting was currently out of the question. I think it could entail creating another entity to handle it.

As far as a bottle deposit bill was concerned, Cutler said that such a bill is brought up almost every single year in PA's Congress and every single time, it's shut down for some reason. She noted that in all the states she's lived and worked in, Pennsylvania is the most resistant to change. Furthermore, the City couldn't pass a local ordinance for bottle deposits.

Sampson had a final question on what the next steps would be for all this go fly. Cutler said that first, Mayor Nutter would have to approve it. Assuming that it's approved with no major revisions, it would then go to City Council for a vote on it and the budget in general. She wasn't aware of any extra legal steps to be taken in the process; no charter changes, no court filings…

Will all this be done by the end of FY09 for the start of FY10 (May/June)? I have no idea. It's an ambitious plan for a city more resistant to change than an old man demanding a certain amount of mustard on his sandwich at the deli he's been going to for the last 40 years (or me demanding a burger be cooked to proper medium rare instead of medium or god-forbid medium well! I'm a stubborn fuck). An extra $5/week wouldn't kill my budget. Fortunately, I also have the room for a 30 gallon trashcan and accompanying official bag in my house. We don't put out much trash (but we didn't bloviate about it like our Mt. Airy counterparts) so the per bag fee wouldn't hit us too hard. With our composter (thank you Marisa!) we already recycle more each week than we throw out. I'd love to see the rest of the City understand the ecological impact of the trash we produce whether it's through a flat economical standpoint or not.

When you think about this proposed hybrid sanitation fee, please don't just think of it as being a fee to pick up your trash. Think of it as money going to saving other essential services like the Fire Department, Police Department, Public Health Centers and yes, our Libraries.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 @ 3:35 pm. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or trackback from your own site. Your comments will be moderated [if you have never previously commented] but will appear as soon as humanly possible.