Title
Authorizing the Committee on the Environment to conduct hearings to investigate challenges and solutions to street litter and waste disposal systems in the wake of COVID-19 in the City of Philadelphia.
Body
WHEREAS, The global pandemic due to the spread of the COVID19 coronavirus caused an unprecedented crisis across the Nation and the City Philadelphia, adversely impacting essential municipal government services including solid waste services; and
WHEREAS, By September of 2020, Philadelphia reached over 34,000 COVID19 cases, leading to continuing public health orders requiring businesses to close and citizens to remain at home causing an increase in the amount of municipal solid waste generated in residential households; and
WHEREAS, The solid waste industry reported a twenty to thirty percent increase in municipal solid waste in many cities and counties across the country causing major delays, disruptions, and alterations to municipal solid waste and recycling collection systems during the pandemic; and
WHEREAS, The COVID19 pandemic caused a major environmental threat to the health and safety of the public with the overwhelming amount of tonnage of residential waste, illegal short dumping, and large amounts of street litter leading to an increase in rodents and harmful insects that pose an additional threat to the health and safety of Philadelphians; and
WHEREAS, The outbreak of COVID19 lead to an unprecedented increase in the volume of waste further compounded by the significant decrease in attendance by essential sanitation workers who were directly and indirectly impacted by COVID19 and other health related issues; and
WHEREAS, The threat to health and public safety caused the Administration to immediately add over 100 temporary workers to the Streets Department to supplement the high number of unplanned absences incurred by this unprecedented pandemic; and
WHEREAS, The Streets Department has worked tirelessly to mitigate collection delays...
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