Beautify Fresno has removed 6 million pounds of litter. Is the city any less trashy? | Opinion
Since January 2021, more than 6 million pounds of trash have been removed from Fresno’s streets, parks, schools, alleys and vacant lots.
Six million pounds! For perspective, that’s the approximate weight of 425 male African elephants, 150 loaded charter buses, 15 blue whales or two General Sherman sequoia trees.
The figures — roughly 1.8 million pounds of trash in 2021, 2.1 million in 2022 and nearly 2.3 million in 2023 — are impressive. Still, is there any indication California’s fifth-largest city is any cleaner?
My empirical eyes say yes. While far from spic-and-span, Fresno is a less trashy place today than it was three or five years ago. And that’s something residents and city officials can (and should) take pride in.
Among Mayor Jerry Dyer’s first priorities was to establish Beautify Fresno, a litter removal program that piggybacked and expanded upon the Keep Fresno Beautiful initiative established in 2019 by his predecessor, Lee Brand.
Beautify Fresno, at first, was largely a volunteer effort. I suspect most people probably still think of it as one. But over the last two budget cycles, the city set aside enough funding for seven two-person crews, an outside contractor (ScrubCan) and adult offenders to collect trash in targeted areas on a full-time basis.
Where is the money coming from? Beautify Fresno is currently funded by $3.5 million from the general fund and $1.2 million from Measure P. (The 3/8th-cent citywide sales tax includes a specific allocation for street beautification and litter removal.)
According to Beautify Fresno director Mark Standriff, full-time crews are responsible for 90% of the 6 million pounds of collected trash compared to 10% by volunteers.
That isn’t meant to diminish the contributions of volunteers and community groups. Rather, it’s an acknowledgment that free labor, namely the 9,000 residents that participated in Beautify Fresno cleanup events during 2023, only goes so far.
“We’ve got a significant trash problem here, and the only way we’re really going to change minds and change hearts is to show that we care and be out there virtually every single day,” Standriff said.
Encouraging trend
Despite the impressive collection totals, is there any actual evidence that Fresno is becoming less of a mess?
Standriff believes so, and to support that he pointed to “a slight reduction” in trash collected over a year-by-year basis in two litter-prone locations.
Besides having a large homeless population, Parkway Drive is located adjacent to Highway 99. In 2021, the first time Beautify Fresno held a cleanup event there, more than a ton of trash was collected. In 2022, the total was closer to 1,600 pounds. This year, it was 1,300 pounds.
Vacant lots also pose a significant trash problem, both from transients and illegal dumpers. At a vacant lot near Clinton and Marks avenues in west Fresno, 1,600 pounds of trash were collected in 2021. In 2022, it was 1,400 pounds. This year? A little over a thousand pounds.
Even though that’s still a lot of garbage, the trends are encouraging.
“What we’re starting to see is fewer and fewer large items that get dumped in these areas because they know the city is paying attention,” Standriff said. “The key to success in any kind of program like this is a change in attitude and accountability. If the attitude is poor and it looks like the city doesn’t care, then why should the residents and property owners care?”
Another significant development has been the proactive approach and quicker responses by city departments to trash piles reported via the FresGO app. There is also much more coordination between the city and other agencies such as Caltrans.
City crews no longer wait for “a ticket” to come through to head out to a specific location, Standriff said. Instead, they’re instructed to pick up trash whenever and wherever they see it.
‘A point of pride’
According to Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias, response times are significantly reduced as well. Whenever he or a staff member report a mess, it’s typically cleaned up within a few hours.
“My district is 10 times cleaner than it was three or four years ago,” Arias said. “I’ve had people who traveled here for conventions tell me we have the cleanest downtown they’ve ever seen.”
Arias says his district, as well as the entire city, will be even cleaner now that Operation Cleanup has been expanded to include apartment complexes and condominiums, rather than just single-family homes. He is also pushing for more garbage cans and the installation of secure trash compactors, which are proven to reduce the mess left by people rummaging through dumpsters.
“Beautify Fresno gave us a north star,” Arias said. “It made reducing trash a point of pride and a priority for the city.”
Despite signs the city is becoming cleaner, Standriff won’t be out of a job anytime soon.
“I don’t think that’s ever going to happen,” he said. “We’re always going to have people who don’t feel like walking to a waste can 30 feet away or tossing something out of the window on the highway. If we can’t give accountability to those folks, they’re going to continue to do it. That’s why we have to be relentless in our efforts.”
That relentlessness is paying off. Both in the 6 million pounds of trash and the start of a citywide culture cleanse.
Nice job, Fresno. Give yourself a (cleaner) hand.
