PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia community groups are trying a new tactic to curb illegal dumping.
Giant maps of some of the city’s most dumped-on parks and neighborhoods lined the walls of the Discovery Center in Fairmount Park last week, for the kickoff of a new strategy in the war on illegal dumpers: putting them on the map, literally.
“We’re mapping them so the city can address these more persistent, pernicious, difficult sites,” said Shari Hersh, founder of the Trash Academy, which is part of Clean Philadelphia NOW, a coalition working to end illegal dumping.
Hersh said Mayor Cherelle Parker’s Clean and Green Initiative has focused on cleaning up the sites, but Hersh said that doesn’t work on legacy dump sites.
The mapping event aimed to stop the dumping altogether — not just clean it up — by creating a clear picture of where action is needed.
“There’s many, many dump sites that have a clean-dump-clean cycle, all over the city,” Hersh said.
“We remove it for the safety of our children,” echoed Bonita Cummings, director of Strawberry Mansion Community Concern, which does monthly clean-ups. “We don’t want it to sit in the minds of our young people thinking this is how we live, this is OK, because it really is not.”
Hersh believes those legacy dump sites can be disrupted, but it will take a new approach.
“We’re advocating for more prevention, more education and outreach, more enforcement, but you need systems to change to accommodate all the waste,” she added.
