Philly formally starts weekly recycling in rain today.

A recycling truck, recycling bins, recycling advocates and Mayor Nutter are headed to the Francisville section of the city this afternoon to formally announce the beginning of weekly pickup for recyclables in the city.

The event begins at 2 p.m. at the Francisville Playground Recreation Center, 1800 Wylie Street. Buckets will be distributed and experts will be on hand to answer questions. Hot beverages and light refreshments will be served beginning at 12:30 p.m.

The new recycling program began Monday. All neighborhoods except Center City and Mount Airy, which have had weekly pickups in a "pilot program" nearly a decade old, have had pickups every other week.

Both officials and recycling advocates say the ease of weekly pickups - no more having to keep track of which week it is! - should boost participation significantly.

Philadelphia once had one of the lowest recycling rates among major cities in the country, just shy of six percent.

Since the introduction of single-stream collection, which means residents no longer have to sort paper, say, from glass, the recycling rate has increased to 10.4 percent and the streets department has been collecting 5,000 tons of recyclables a month - a first in the recycling program's history.

Officials anticipate that within a year, the rate will rise to 18 to 20 percent.

Still, the city has a long way to go before it matches the rate in California cities like Los Angeles, where the rate is upwards of 50 percent.