image of street sweeper
Image courtesy Sarah Hobbie, University of Minnesota

Survey of street sweeping practices

The MPCA conducted a survey of cities to determine their street sweeping practices, their interest in a street sweeping credit, and their ability to implement different methods for crediting sweeping. We have not yet fully analyzed the data, but some general conclusions include the following.

  • 75 cities responded to the survey and indicated they operate a sweeping program. This was a response rate of close to 50 percent. The responses were distributed geographically across the state and covered a wide range of city sizes (large to small).
  • About 78 percent indicated they would be likely to participate in a crediting program
  • All but 7 cities can track sweeping information, but 66 percent said they cannot relate material collected to a specific geographic area. This is a question we likely will follow-up with, since being able to relate material to a geographic location is potentially a way of targeting sweeping efforts.
  • Most cities estimate volume or mass of material collected, but few measure volume or mass or have the ability to measure dry weight of material collected
  • Most cities sweep quarterly or less and most do not specifically sweep in response to fall leave drop

The summary information can be found here.

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