Amma Napier, who lives on Rex Avenue in Chestnut Hill, could hear the sound of partying loud and clear on Saturday night. It was coming from a section of the Wissahickon, which is right behind her house.
The next day she walked out to see what they left behind. And what she found shocked her.
“I knew to bring a trash bag with me on my Sunday hike as this has happened before, but never like this,” Napier said. “There was so much trash, too much to pick up, the majority in the form of alcoholic beverage containers (full and empty). The most disturbing trash …
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Amma Napier, who lives on Rex Avenue in Chestnut Hill, could hear the sound of partying loud and clear on Saturday night. It was coming from a section of the Wissahickon, which is right behind her house.
The next day she walked out to see what they left behind. And what she found shocked her.
“I knew to bring a trash bag with me on my Sunday hike as this has happened before, but never like this,” Napier said. “There was so much trash, too much to pick up, the majority in the form of alcoholic beverage containers (full and empty). The most disturbing trash was thrown in our beautiful creek that runs parallel to the Rex Avenue trail.”
Even more disturbing, Napier wrote in an email to the Local, is that she found the trash itself to smack of privilege.
“These kids were driving their parents’ cars (likely intoxicated), spending a lot of money on cases and cases of beverages. There is clearly no lack of funding,” Napier wrote. “There were not only LuluLemon products but references to Louboutin shoes written on the gallon jugs filled with colored liquids. So much excess and such little care for the park.”
According to Ruffian Tittmann, executive director of Friends of the Wissahickon (FOW), teenagers using the park to gather for parties and then leaving large amounts of trash behind is a chronic problem.
“It's one of the regular sources of trash in the park,” Tittmann said. “Anecdotally, we're told it's the result of teenagers partying. I couldn't say that I've seen them, I've only seen the aftermath and had it reported.”
Tittman said that when reports like this come in, people usually identify the kids as being from one of the several private schools around the park. “Based on the location, the person calling generally identifies the nearest school,” she said.
FOW cleans up “huge” amounts of trash every day, Tittmann said. Each cleanup is hours of work from volunteers and coordinating with Parks and Recreation for pickup.
In 2024, FOW volunteers removed over 32,500 pounds of trash from the Wissahickon Valley Park.
