Baltimore takes the top spot as the nation’s dirtiest city: study

In determining the nation’s dirtiest cities, HouseFresh reviewed 12.3 million sanitation-related complaints to 311 over the past year. Cities that had over 250,000 residents were ranked based on the number of sanitation-related reports, such as garbage, waste, and recycling, per 100,000 residents: ""We analyzed 12.3 million sanitation-related 311 complaints placed over the last 365 days to reveal the dirtiest cities in America. Covering categories related to sanitation issues — such as garbage, waste and recycling — we ranked locations based on the number of sanitation-related reports per 100,000 population," they state.

The publication found that there were 47,295 sanitary-related complaints per 100,000 residents in the last year.

Second place was Sacramento, with 34,186 complaints per 100,000 residents. However, a City of Sacramento representative told HouseFresh that they encourage residents to call 311 for any customer service request, such as routine collection services, which "could explain why Sacramento ranks so high on this list," the publication reported.

The cleanest city was found to be Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with just 309 complaints.

The publication also looked at individual zip codes with 21213 coming in as the dirtiest. The zip code, which lies in Baltimore’s Belair-Edison and Clifton neighborhoods, with 89,391 complaints. The second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth-dirtiest zip codes were also in Baltimore. The cleanest zip code was 77546 in Houston, which had just 19 complaints.

The city has made efforts in recent years to clean up, including through the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore’s floating trash wheel dubbed "Mr. Trash Wheel," which removes debris from the city’s Inner Harbor. The contraption has removed millions of pounds of debris from the harbor since it was first put in the water in 2014. Additional trash wheels have been placed in other areas of the city since then.