The city has kicked off another 13-week cleaning program that will visit every Philadelphia neighborhood before the summer's end.
From Monday through Friday, Aug. 1, the Parker administration plans to deploy teams of sanitation workers to clear litter and debris from neighborhoods. The cleaning crews will arrive the day after trash collection because, as the city notes (and any resident knows), garbage tends to be "most visible" immediately after the trucks roll through their routes. Workers will tackle the mess with brooms, leaf blowers, shovels and weed trimmers, with mechanical flushers following.
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Other city agencies and programs will participate in the project. Officers from the Streets & Walkways Education and Enforcement Program will patrol each neighborhood for sanitation code violations and issue warnings and citations. The Philadelphia Parking Authority will work with police to remove abandoned cars. Additional city employees will clean up vacant lots, remove graffiti, "deep clean" recreation centers and pave potholes, among other tasks.
Some of the first neighborhoods on the schedule are Kensington, Strawberry Mansion, Northern Liberties and Fishtown. The crews will fan out into other areas later in the season. Residents can track their block's cleaning date through an interactive map on the Office of Clean and Green Initiatives website.
City officials said the program — which Mayor Cherelle Parker debuted last summer and deployed again in the fall — will contribute to a national effort to remove 25 billion pieces of garbage ahead of America's semiquincentennial.
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