Treating Our Planet and Neighbors Better
Resolve Philly
Developing and advancing journalism based on equity, collaboration, and the elevation of community voices and solutions
Even when residents work hard to preserve the environment, the rules keep changing and can be confusing. Can you recycle plastic bags? (No, not in your curbside bin) How much does washing out a can before recycling it matter?
In Philadelphia, recycling rates have plummeted and currently are far below the national average. And materials that are recycled properly can end up in a landfill if they get mixed in with non-recyclable items.
Green Philly and The Philadelphia Citizen reported on how Philly ended up trashing so much more waste than other big cities and current educational initiatives to raise the recycling rate by reducing contamination. Their second story outlines four ways the Parker administration could increase recycling.
This week we also feature an intensely personal narrative from Resolve’s Dionicia Roberson, outlining what’s at stake in this week’s Supreme Court case Grants Pass v. Johnson. Dio writes that it will decide whether towns and cities can criminalize being unsheltered, fining or arresting unhoused people sleeping on public property.
We hope you appreciate all these stories and how they connect big questions facing our nation with what’s happening right here.
Gene Sonn
Director of Collaborations
Resolve Philly
Is My Recycling Being... Recycled?
Fairhill resident Lois Williams likes to call herself a “religious recycler.”
She rinses out her cans and bottles. She dries them before placing them in the bin. She knows what kind of plastics the city recycles (types 1, 2 and 5). For her, it’s part of keeping Philly clean — she lives near a site where illegal dumping is common — but also protecting the environment for future generations.
But when she talks to her neighbors, she finds many don’t share her passion.
In fact, many don’t recycle at all. Williams has been to meetings run by impact real estate developer HACE’s Neighborhood Advisory Subcommittee, of which she is a member, at the Rivera Senior Center in Allegheny where residents expressed concerns that their recycling was just being tossed in a landfill. She’s even started to doubt her own efforts.
“Why am I going through all of this if you’re just putting it in the dump and then burning the stuff up or something like that?” Williams says.
Four Ways to Improve Recycling in Philly
Recycling in Philly is broken. Here’s how Mayor Parker’s administration could fix it.
Recycling in Philly has lost its way. In recent years, between Covid-caused labor shortages and China no longer buying U.S. recyclables, residents lost faith in the system. Recycling rates plummeted. By spring 2022, Philadelphia’s recycling rate was 8 percent. Today, we’re at a not-much-better 13 percent. (For more on why this is, read this piece from The Citizen.)
But there are ways to fix recycling in Philly. Places like San Francisco, CA and Boulder, CO have worked with their contractors to make more materials available for recycling and partnered on educational initiatives, while bans on certain products have helped remove common contaminants from recycling streams.
These tactics are working. San Francisco has the best recycling rate in America. Boulder has raised its landfill diversion rate to above 50 percent, topping the national rate of 32 percent.
The Streets Department did not respond to many of our questions about what they’re planning to do, but with a new mayor — who made cleaning and greening the city a major part of her campaign — and a fresh City Council, Philadelphia has an opportunity to make significant changes to the way it approaches recycling.
Here are four ways the City could improve recycling in Philly ?— if officials are willing to get a little creative.
Behind the Scenes
Resolve’s Associate Editor of Community Narratives Dio Roberson came across the details of the Supreme Court hearing scheduled for April 22 (Grants Pass v. Johnson) by happenstance sometime in early March, when the Housing Narrative Lab flagged the date in a newsletter. “I caught the story pretty much out of the corner of my eye,” she says. The fact that Dio – and many of Resolve’s staff – hadn’t heard of this landmark case before that point was alarming to everyone, especially Dio.
“The combination of what felt like radio silence from city offices, and the general quiet about the issue in the Philly media, made me extremely nervous,” she says.
“It felt like incredibly important decisions with incredibly important implications for unhoused folks were getting set into motion behind our backs. We needed to generate conversation on this ASAP, to get the word out for sure, but also to make it possible for citizens and organizations that serve unsheltered folks to respond, and plan for what might come from an unfavorable ruling.”
In spite of the trepidation of penning an opinion piece centered around such deeply painful and personal experiences, Dio was compelled forward by a sense of urgency. Her piece was published first in Generocity and then by Love Now Media and Next City.