Trash Me

My question to you both is if you have investigated whether the City of Philadelphia keeps any records or statistics of tickets issued for littering within the downtown/center city area. If they are available, I would wager a guess that the numbers are so low, they're not even worth publicly reporting. I walk to work every morning and see at least 3-5 people openly and blatantly littering on well traveled city streets (Rittenhouse area, Walnut Street, Chestnut Street, Broad, etc), often while in the presence of city police officers or center city district representatives. I have no doubt the police don't have the manpower or resources to actively police littering (especially in light of violent crime prevention), but I think if we could find a way to actively and financially punish those that litter in these densely populated and well-traveled areas, it could change people's behaviors and possibly carry over to attitudes towards littering in outlying neighborhoods.

If one person rushing to work drops a wrapper and gets a $25 ticket and is delayed in getting to their job as a result, I have to imagine that person would be a little more cautious about where they placed trash in the future… not to mention the bystanders in the general area where the ticket was being issued. People are always interested in police activity... think rubbernecking while driving past a traffic accident… and if they see and hear (I'm sure the person getting ticketed will conveniently be loud/irate about the entire situation and will openly and loudly let everyone in the area know how outraged they are) a fellow pedestrian being written up for littering, they too will know that they need to watch their step.

Matthew