Plastic Origins

Plastic Origins is a citizen science project aimed at mapping river plastic pollution in Europe. As you are going down a river, on foot or on a watercraft such as kayaks, you can report the presence of litter items that you will find on the riverbanks and on the water along your way by using the mobile Application Plastic Origins. 

The App will register your geolocation and you will be able to report manually litter items.

Thanks to this monitoring, we will be able to obtain an indicator of river macro-litter pollution: the number of litter items observed per kilometer of riverbank. This data will make it possible to follow the evolution of plastic waste in European rivers, to propose solutions to the most affected territories and to act at the regulatory level to limit plastic pollution from the source.  

Aim

The goal of Plastic Origins is to track and map macro-plastic pollution in European rivers by collecting data on the Application thanks to citizen science. Data will enable to localize pollution hot spots and to act to fight against this pollution.  

Needed equipment

You need your smartphone! If you want to have even more fun, you can also use kayaks or canoe.  

Created Feb. 22, 2021, 11:07 a.m.

Updated March 11, 2022, 9:26 a.m.

Keywords

Science Topics

Difficulty Level

Participation tasks

Coordinator

Surfrider Foundation Europe

Non-governmental

Location