Philly will now pick up your old fridge at the curb. But you may have to wait

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It’s been two weeks since the City of Philadelphia announced it was restarting curbside trash pickup of bulky items like couches, refrigerators and tires. Already, the program is proving popular.

As of Friday, more than 700 residents had signed up for the appointment-only service, according to the city’s Department of Sanitation.

“I’m glad that they’re restarting it,” said Teea Tynes, a resident of North Philly’s Fairhill neighborhood who helps lead the activist group Trash Academy. The group has pushed for the return of curbside bulk pickup as a solution to illegal dumping. “There are large items that folks have that they cannot get rid of themselves.”

City sanitation crews had completed over 300 bulk pickups as of Friday, collecting a total of nearly 25 tons worth of large items, said Department of Sanitation spokesperson Keisha McCarty-Skelton.

It’s the first time the city has offered curbside pickup of bulk items in more than a decade. Previously, the only legal disposal option for items too big to go in the regular trash was to take the item to one of six city-run sanitation convenience centers. This was challenging for anyone unable to carry large items or transport them in a large vehicle.

“This free service assists residents with inoperable bulk items in their homes and limited storage space,” said Department of Sanitation commissioner Crystal Jacobs-Shipman in the city’s written announcement late last month. “We are eager to see how this program will positively impact Philadelphia’s residents.”

The new program is first come, first served — and there’s a bit of a line.

As of Friday, the earliest available appointment was in late October, which Leah Murphy considered too long. The urban design consultant who does work for Trash Academy hoped to get rid of a broken couch she found abandoned in front of her Olde Kensington home.

“This couch is way too big to fit in my car,” she said. “I don’t want to be ticketed for it being there, especially because it’s not mine … It’s an eyesore.”

The first time Murphy tried to book an appointment to have the couch picked up, the earliest available day was over three weeks away. So she decided to take her chances with the regular weekly trash pickup, in hopes the couch would be removed. That didn’t happen, so she decided to sign up for a bulk pickup appointment at the end of the month.

“Since [the couch] has been there, people have tended to pile other trash on top of it,” Murphy said. “So it’s kind of starting to accumulate.”

This delay is one reason anti-dumping advocates see the new curbside bulk pickup program as an imperfect step in the right direction.

“The turnaround time needs to be much quicker,” said David Evans, co-founder of the cleanup group Block By Block Philly.

Tynes, with Trash Academy, wants to see the appointment requirement dropped.

“Hopefully it’ll get back to where it was before, where there was a certain day, depending on where you lived, where the bulk items would be picked up, and you knew what day that was,” she said. “But it’s a good start.”