On Thursday, 9/18/2025, Councilmember Gauthier introduced the bill we wrote to prohibit the city from signing contracts to burn the city’s trash, recyclables, or compostables. The Stop Trashing Our Air Act, if passed before new contracts are signed in Spring 2026, will prevent the multi-year new waste contracts from allowing waste to be burned after 7/1/2026. The bill has been assigned to the Streets and Services Committee.

The bill only applies to waste that the city manages, which is about half of the city’s trash, collected by the Department of Sanitation from public facilities and residences with up to six units. Apartments with more than six units are considered commercial and have private collection. Currently, 37% of the city’s trash is incinerated, mainly in the City of Chester, home to the nation’s largest waste incinerator which is the largest industrial air polluter within the 7-county Philadelphia region. The city’s two waste contracts expire on 6/30/2026 and new contracts are being pursued.

For more information, please see our Frequently Asked Questions and our Philly Zero Waste page. Organizations can sign on in support of the bill here.

We’ve been busy and the file linked here will catch you up on all that’s been happening!

First, a 4-page FAQ about Philadelphia’s use of Waste Incineration (TL:DR, It makes NO sense!)

https://phillyzerowaste.org/ContractFAQ.pdf

Next, here is a view of the demographics around waste facilities that Philly uses. (TL:DR, These facilities are preying on poor and BIPOC communities. It’s disgusting!)

https://phillyzerowaste.org/demographics.pdf

Next, we share our response to the Request for Information (RFI) put out by the City of Philadelphia. (TL:DR, We know how to help make Philly awesome on waste management!)

https://phillyzerowaste.org/2025RFI-EJN.pdf

And finally, our latest PowerPoint presentation if you want to GO DEEP and GET TRASHY diving into waste management, environmental racism, the health impacts of incineration, and so much MORE!

https://phillyzerowaste.org/powerpoint2025.pdf

If you represent an organization, please sign our sign-on letter here!

Our plan is…

• Stop Philly from burning our trash and recycling
• Get Philly’s Sanitation Department to stop trashing recycling
• Reduce our waste with real Zero Waste strategies

36% of Philly’s trash is burned, mostly in the nearby City of Chester, PA – a famous case of environmental racism. The Reworld (Covanta) trash incinerator in Chester is the largest in the U.S. burns up to 3,500 tons of trash and industrial waste per day. It is the #1 industrial air polluter in the 7-county Philly area, contributing to our high asthma and cancer rates.

Help us end the use of incineration, which is more than twice as harmful for climate, health and environment than landfilling, and disproportionately harms people of color, especially those in the City of Chester.

How does this help?
The Philadelphia Streets Department admitted in late 2020 that they were ordering sanitation workers to mix recycling with the trash when they’re short-staffed. They claim that this practice stopped in the Spring of 2021, and now deny that they are ordering sanitation workers to trash recycling. Collecting data, including photos and videos, helps prove this is still happening across the city. Sanitation workers have admitted that they are still sometimes being ordered to trash recycling.

Does documenting this put sanitation workers’ jobs at risk?
Nope! Sanitation Workers are following directions handed down by management. The Streets Department has publicly stated that workers jobs would not be at risk by documenting this, and is asking for reports on where recycling isn’t being collected properly.