815 Needle Pickup Calls in 30 Days, and a Third of Them Came From the South End
Boston 311 data shows the South End logged 266 needle pickup requests in a month, more than Roxbury, Back Bay and South Boston.
If you live near Mass Ave and Melnea Cass, this ain't news to you, but the numbers make it plain. From Sept. 19 through Oct. 18, 2026, Boston 311 took 815 needle pickup requests citywide. That's the third most common thing people called about, behind only litter and illegal parking.
The South End had 266 of them, about a third of the city's total. Roxbury had 177. Back Bay had 98, South Boston 64, Fenway 52 and Dorchester 38.
Here's the part that's actually decent: needle pickups go to the Boston Public Health Commission, and that agency's cases are mostly getting closed on time. Out of 814 BPHC cases in that window, 35 were marked overdue.
Want one gone? Report it to 311 with the exact spot. Don't pick it up bare-handed.
How we reported this
Boston Uncut queried the City of Boston's 311 Service Requests (new system) dataset on Analyze Boston for requests with case topic 'Needle Pickup' opened Sept. 19 through Oct. 18, 2026 (UTC), grouped by the dataset's neighborhood field, plus on-time status for cases assigned to the Boston Public Health Commission.
