Submitted Ideas

TrashBlitz- your city’s plastic pollution snapshot

Plastic pollution has been found across all oceans. Based on our observations of the
current and future direction of the plastic pollution movement, a better understanding of
metropolitan sources of plastic waste are needed to inform science-based solutions. Despite plastic pollutions’ global scale, it is often managed and mitigated by municipalities/cities (For example, recycling) however, data is lacking at this level. Leveraging first-hand science to drive upstream solutions has been at the core of our organization. Therefore, the TrashBlitz project will serve as a replicable and scalable project for other regions and cities to adopt worldwide. We propose a city-wide citizen science project that takes a snapshot of a city’s plastic pollution footprint, sampling in four environmental areas (rivers, streets, beaches, and near-shore coastal ocean). Near-real time data and results is then made available through an online interactive map and a recommendations for solution report will be presented to the city.