In Philadelphia the Litter Index is how the city decides “the how, why, where, and what of litter in Philadelphia and identifying proactive and collaborative solutions to address this issue.”
According to this Litter Index, Philadelphia is remarkably clean and getting cleaner! City reports detail an 11% decrease in trash from 1.29 on the litter index in 2024 to 1.14 in 2025. The Litter Index is scored on a scale of 1 to 4, the scale being:
- 1 – Little to No Litter
- 2 – Litter in the amount that can be collected by a single person
- 3 – Litter in the amount that would require collection by a team
- 4 – Litter in the amount that would require collection by a large team of people and/or heavy machinery
This Litter Index survey data is collected by “thirty-seven staff members across six departments.” The six departments being the Streets Department, Community Life Improvement Program (CLIP), Philadelphia Water Department (PWD), Philadelphia Parks and Recreation (PPR), SEPTA, and the School District of Philadelphia.
Philadelphia’s last full published Litter Index Report is from 2019 and primarily uses 2017 and 2018 as their datasets. In those years the Citywide Litter Index dropped from 1.73 in 2017 to 1.62 in 2018.
The Philly Plain Dealer in conjunction with local West Philly nonprofit We Love Philly have partnered up to create this interactive map using Litter Index Data from 2024 and 2025. The Philly Plain Dealer acquired this data through a Right-to-Know request and then We Love Philly Cybersecurity pre-apprentice graduate Yaroslav Ponarovskyi built a sharable map highlighting the Litter Index Data.
On this Litter Index map you can find where the piles of trash have been dumped, the litter index score, and in some cases you can learn specifically what was dumped.
According to this map, the areas with the most litter were West Philly from 46th to 62nd Streets between Baltimore Ave and Spruce Street, the areas between Lancaster Ave and Haverford Ave between 42nd and 63rd Streets, and pockets of North Philly and Fishtown.
Local advocacy group Trash Academy disputes the Litter Index and in a recent Instagram post they said “Philadelphia says the city is basically clean. Residents know the story is more complicated. This year, community members have mapped 100+ dumpsites across the city. But the city scored itself with a citywide litter index of 1.10, which doesn’t add up to the relentless dumping we know is happening in neighborhood hotspots.”
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