Walk west on 24th Street through the Mission District and up through Noe Valley, and suddenly the windswept trash that skirts through the Mission disappears.
After the climb up 24th Street into Noe Valley, the streets are clean. Why?
The most obvious answer is simple: Noe Valley’s 24th Street has more public trash bins.
Over the next month, Mission Loc@l will be looking at the issue of trash. An avid walker will notice immediately that the Mission District has more litter than Noe Valley and many other San Francisco neighborhoods. It also has more commercial corridors that create trash. How does the neighborhood clean up? Does it even want to?
In our new series on trash, we’ll be talking to residents and experts, plotting trash cans, comparing our streets to others and talking to urbanologists about the impact trash has on residents. We’ll also be looking for cleaner street solutions.
The Department of Public Works will be providing data and the strategy the city uses to keep litter off the streets.
But we start with a simple count.
In the nine blocks of 24th Street between Castro and Guerrero, some 23 receptacles await pedestrians’ trash. At the intersection of 24th and Castro, a bin sits on each corner, and between Castro and Noe, a pedestrian will find two more receptacles mid-block and another three at Noe.
“This street is really clean. We never have had problems with trash outside,” said an employee of Happy Donuts at Church and 24th streets, where there are four public trash bins.
“It is easier for people to throw trash away if it is convenient for them,” she said as she served coffee.
And on Noe Valley’s 24th Street, most of the time it’s convenient.
In fact, only the intersections at Chattanooga and Fair Oaks have no bins in which a passerby can discard a food container, a newspaper or a kleenex. Even the small street of Vicksburg has four receptacles.
But descend into the Mission and suddenly city trash receptacles become scarce. To be sure, public bins abound at the 24th Street BART station, which some 12,000 riders use every weekday. Four receptacles sit on each BART Plaza and another two reside in front of McDonald’s, meaning there are ten public bins at the corner of Mission and 24th Street.
But elsewhere it’s as if 24th Street has blown its receptacle allotment at those plazas.
“There aren’t enough trash cans around here, that is why we have our own,” said Jeff, the owner of Pal’s Takeaway on Hampshire Street, as he pointed to a white bucket outside the sandwich shop.
Other businesses also set up their own trash cans. “The city doesn’t care, we have to take care of our own,” said Susana Ramirez as she picked up nectarines at El Chico Produce, which has set up bins outside.
Excluding the Mission Street intersection, the other 14 intersections between San Jose and Potrero on 24th Street share 19 bins.
At the Mission BART plaza, some people said it’s not a matter of how many trash cans there are, but of education. “Look at [the trash on the ground], there is a trash can next to it and people don’t bother to use it,” said Jake, who commutes from the station.
Added Julia Romano, who threw her child’s empty juice bottle into a receptacle, “It should be a crime to throw trash on the street, like in Singapore — that would fix the problem.”
Maybe, but that’s unlikely to happen here.
Rachel Parker contributed to this piece.
Upper 24th street has a business district program wherein the property owners are taxed extra for extra benefits, like more trash cans. People along Noe Valley 24th street do not dump their household trash at the street cans. The business group pays private workers to patrol the street sweeping and picking up any stray trash, cleaning messes, etc. When it’s clean, more people mind their manners and throw trash away properly.
Another hotspot regarding trash is Garfield Park. It is pretty well equipped with trash recepticles on the corners but due to the several homeless people who have made this newly renovated park their clubhouse, they flood the trash cans past capacity. This is a pretty disgusting problem that could use some re-evaluation. Another unfortunate problem the Mission’s streets are forced to deal with is feces all over the sidewalks. Its horrible to say but I feel like Im walking through the Middle Ages in parts of this neighborhood and constantly fear contracting the plague by breathing.
We had two trash cans removed from our corner of 15th and Guerrero and our neighborhood is much cleaner. The trash cans were used for dumping, and the homeless would go through them every night dumping the day’s trash on the street. It is counter intuitive, but fewer trash cans has helped. The issue is to make littering a costly fine,, because trash can or not, people don’t care and will just toss anywhere.
This tired and sorry subject gets regurgitated and flogged from pillar to post once every couple of years or so.
As has been stated, we (Mission residents) *asked* DPW to remove trash bins from our corners.
We do *not* want the bins back!
They’re a magnet for dumping large items. They really aren’t used for small candy wrapper-type bits.
Comparing Upper 24th Street to Lower 24th Street is apples to oranges in most every way.
– Upper is on a slope. Lower is flat.
– Upper is people who are invested in the neighborhood. Lower is a large transient population who seem not to care.
– Upper is people who toss chips bags in bins. Lower is people who let them fly even when a bin is a foot away.
Frances noted the study that found that “the presence of public trash cans increased dumping so they removed many of the public trash cans in the Mission because of that.
“It sounds counter intuitive but as someone who lives in the Mission on a street where they removed the public trash can. It did help decrease the dumping.”
I read the study; very interesting findings. Highly recommended.
Leave the subject of the absence of the bins alone. Please!
Street trash on and around lower 24th is a huge problem, as well as dog owners not cleaning up after their dogs. And it’s not an issue of number of trash cans but one of some people just truly suck. If we could get rid of them we could eliminate much of the trash (largely consisting of losing lottery tickets, cigarette butts and junk food wrappers) and dog feces on our streets. Sadly that does not seem likely to happen anytime soon.
The only people who think Fair Oaks is Noe Valley are people who listen to real estate salesmen.
Dolores is a natural boundary between the Mission and Noe for two very good reasons: first, the topography of 24th Street; second, because insurers still use zip codes to assign risk, and Dolores is where 94110 ends and 94114 begins.
Rather than big an issue out of a non-issue, why not read the neighborhood bulletin boards?
If the writers did, they would know that the Community Business District taxes all property owners on 24th street from Church to Diamond streets. The owners pay an additional fees to have a full time clean up crews to deal with the junk people put on the sidewalks, garbage, graffiti, public area damage, and trash can overflow. These crews are like the ones the city used to have when it had revenue enough to fund practical services.
What? Businesses now have to pay a special tax to get the street cleaned? That’s a good one. I haven’t checked the regs lately; do I have to pay a special fee to have a fire engine come if my house in on fire? This is public service in the age of obama.
Hi,
It sounds like you don’t know about the study that was done a few years ago that said that the presence of public trash cans increased dumping so they removed many of the public trash cans in the Mission because of that. It sounds counter intuitive but as someone who lives in the Mission on a street where they removed thepublic trash can. it did help decrease the dumping. It was reported in the Chronicle and Newsom was behind it.
There is also the issue of immigrants some recent, some not so, many from the Phillipines, who are too poor to pay for trash services or don’t think they should or have to who leave their trash on street corners until the DPW cleans it up.
There are also regular big stuff, mattresses, furniture, furnishings etc, dumps that the DPW refuses to investigate. One DPW guy in a sleeps six sleeper car told me that I knew who was dumping and that if I wanted it stopped I could do something about it. Calls to 311 do nothing.
storefronts are supposed to have garbage bins at front; curiously, there are more garbage bins on store fronts between S. Van Ness and Potrero, than in Noe Valley. Why the business there are not practicing this?
I live in the Mission and even when there is a garbage can around people still trash on the street. We gotta educate our community and the visitors.
Albeit trash cans are needed at least one in every intersection, and one or more at every corner of heavy pedestrian traffic intersections, education is the key. Signage for trash cans, “please don’t litter” in english and spanish and maybe even cantonese or mandarin. The Mission has changed greatly since I moved here 25 years ago. I love the Mission for its beautiful weather and people, but hate walking around trash and dog shit. I clean up after my dog and I hang on to my trash until I can dispose of it properly only because I want the younger generations to enjoy The Mission.
To answer the question posed by the authors: Yes, this Mission Citizen (24 years) does want the trash cleaned up! Thanks for all your efforts.
And more thanks: Kudos to the teacher at Horace Mann who did such a nice job of planting and keeping the area around the school clean last year. I don’t know what happens to him in the Buena Vista transition, but I don’t want to lose him. We really noticed what you did for the school and the community.
It’s because there are far fewer bums!
not too many years ago many public trash cans were removed under gavin’s watch. the logic was that people wouldn’t pile up heaps of home trash around them. (?) never made sense to me as i would walk my dog and carry bags of poop for 12 blocks until i could finally dispose. returning cans might help, but unfortunately in areas like 21st & folsom where i have been living for 5ish years the “locals” around jose coronado playground haven’t really grasped the concept of using the existing cans for much more than bars, urinals, places to stash things behind, and then through their trash in the street or sidewalks.
In my area near 17th and South Van Ness residents asked the city to remove the garbage cans because people/local businesses were just using them as dumping areas – several bags of trash would be left next to the can and then blow all over the street. It’s still dirty in the area but it did stop the dumping issue.
Unfortunately now when you need to throw something away you have to go a few blocks more.
I hate to say it, but there needs to be some kind of punitive measure if we expect folks to properly dispose of their trash. I lived near 17th and Capp for about 9 years and most of the denizens there wouldn’t bother to use a trash can at all. I’ve seen many, many people simply throw garbage on the street. To be frank, if you’re reading this blog, there’s a good chance you find that appalling. However, there is an significant segment of the Mission population that just doesn’t give a fuck. Education is going to be a wasted effort. A $100 ticket on the other hand…
I agree, I live 10 yards from a trash can and I see people dropping their trash, usually candy and chip wrappers, as soon as they are done with it. From my experience, the people that live near my place, 22nd/Folsom don’t care about using trash cans.
excellent point, Lydia and Octavio.
try to find a trash can between Duboce and 15th on Valencia. plenty of storefronts in that area, but you’ll find yourself walking several blocks.
The City requires businesses with storefronts that generate trash to have their own bins.
Didn’t former mayor hair gel boy order the number of trash bins reduced a few years ago to make the city cleaner and greener? Why, yes he did: http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-06-27/bay-area/17250193_1_trash-cans-man-s-trash-san-francisco-city-hall
The City requiring local businesses to have their own bins does not work, because people do not consume what they buy at the storefront. They travel and litter wherever they finish consuming. He did take away a bin at the corner of Capp and 23rd. The bin used to be always full, and now the same amount of trash is on the street. Obviously his plan did not work and we need those bins back on the streets.
Marcos: Thank you. We’re aware of the 300 plus trashcans former Mayor Newsom took off the streets in 2007 and we’re looking for exactly where those bins came off the streets. There might also have been more. Reports at the time count some 5,000 bins, but the Department of Public Works now reports 3,500 bins on the streets. Best, Lydia
No problem, Lydia, does it make you feel better that the guy who was running the DPW is now the guy who is running the MTA? We can continue to expect the same level of transit service in the Mission as we get trash pickup.
Living downwind of 16th/Mission, I often solve our jetsam problem by repatriating McD’s and BK wrappers that blow our way to their place of origin by chucking them through the open doors and onto the floor of the “restaurant.”
Great series. I often wonder why in the suburbs there are no trash cans. I’m speaking of 19th Ave. in the sunset.
I live in the Sunset, not far from 19th Ave. – which does still have some trash cans, by the way. But quite a few were taken away under Newsom because people were, in fact, dumping their home (and construction site) garbage at them (I do lots and lots of walking out here, so I’ve seen it).
I think it makes some sense to take trash cans out of areas that aren’t commercial corridors. But not from neighborhoods like the Mission, or from parks or bus stops.
Justin: Great question and we’ll try and answer it as we plot trash bins around the city. Best, Lydia