Why Do Some of Our Alleys Look Like This?

Driving through Seattle’s University District today, I passed several alleys that looked much like the one in this photograph: overflowing dumpsters, loose garbage scattered across the pavement, graffiti, and litter collecting along the edges. And it made me wonder: What causes this? Is it simply that the dumpsters are too small or aren’t emptied often enough? Are people dumping household items and garbage where they shouldn’t? Is loose trash escaping from overflowing containers and being carried down the alley by wind, animals, or vehicles? Are there simply so many different property owners, businesses, tenants, waste companies and city departments involved that no one feels responsible for the alley as a whole? Or does something else happen once an area begins to look neglected?

Maybe people become a little less reluctant to drop something on the ground when there’s already trash everywhere. One discarded bag becomes two. An overflowing dumpster becomes a place to leave something beside it. Graffiti attracts more graffiti. Slowly, a condition that probably began with a few very solvable problems starts to feel normal.

That leads to an even more important question: What Can We Do About It? It’s easy to look at an alley like this and say, “Someone should clean that up.” But who is someone? Could neighboring businesses work together to keep shared alleys cleaner? Could dumpster service be increased at locations that routinely overflow? Could property owners secure containers better and deal quickly with illegal dumping? Could the City make it easier to report recurring problem areas and identify who is responsible? Could neighborhood organizations periodically adopt particularly troublesome alleys? And could the rest of us help by doing the simplest thing of all — picking up a piece of litter when we safely can instead of walking past it?

Pick It Up Seattle was founded around a very simple idea: we don’t have to solve every problem ourselves to make a visible difference. But we do have to start asking the right questions. So we’d really like to hear from you: Why do you think some Seattle alleys end up looking like this? And, even more importantly: What do you think we can realistically do about it? Sometimes the people who live, work, walk and operate businesses in a neighborhood understand the problem better than anyone else. Maybe the beginning of a cleaner Seattle is simply getting those people talking to one another.

Imagine... A city where every person leaves every place a little better than they found it.