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Talkin' trash: Can we can it?

As the Daily News reported yesterday, the City of Philadelphia has kicked its "UnLitter Us" campaign into high gear with cleanup events in Frankford and a pledge by the local residential and business community to carry the project forward.

As the Daily News reported yesterday, the City of Philadelphia has kicked its "UnLitter Us" campaign into high gear with cleanup events in Frankford and a pledge by the local residential and business community to carry the project forward.

Of course we at Earth to Philly applaud the effort - litter and its abolition is the everyday, nonglamorous concept that doesn't get the face time that recycling, composting and buying newfangled light bulbs do, but which constantly needs addressing.

My only critique is that while getting the citizenry to buy into the concept of cleaning up their neighborhood with promotional banners and video PSAs, Philly and its Streets Department are not as good a job providing them a place to dispose of that litter. Even if we ignored the handle problem with the Big Belly cans and took the company's word for how much more efficient they are, they're in a very small number of locations citywide. Meanwhile I can walk around Center City, for example, and see dozens of spots where there used to be trash cans and are no more.

Among those spots is storefronts. Businesses that deal mainly in "disposables" - especially fast-food outlets and convenience stores - used to have trash cans out front as a matter of course. It was my understanding that this was imperative for them, to have a can out at least while they're open - but my sources tell me no, and one way or another, it's certainly not happening now, except in the case of about half the food carts I checked in my scientific-survey walk this afternoon.

At the risk of driving all the horrified businesses out of the city, I would say reconfirming that common-sense rule (it's not even a suggestion in the "Business Ambassador Program" of UnLitter Us), and enforcing it, could both beautify our city and earn it a little cash in the bargain. And more to the point, it will show Philadelphians that the Greenest City in America is walking the walk rather than just rallying them to do so.