The Ocean Cleanup plastic survey - Generate river and ocean plastic data for cleaner oceans

Hi all, My name is Boyan Slat, and I am the Founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup. The Ocean Cleanup’s mission is to develop advanced technologies to rid the oceans of plastic. To do this, we rely on research and data driven work to stem the inflow of plastic from rivers, and to clean up the legacy plastic already out in the ocean. Identifying pollution hotspots and monitoring are crucial for an efficient cleanup strategy. Therefore, next to our cleanup technologies, we also develop monitoring technology to optimize our cleanup activities. The Ocean Cleanup scientists have just developed a River Plastic Survey app and released an upgraded version of the Ocean Plastic Survey app. These apps are easy to use and allow you to report to a global database of plastic debris observations in rivers and oceans using only your smartphone. You can see all gathered data on The Ocean Cleanup’s newly released global citizen science map (https://theoceancleanup.com/citi...). How?

1. Download the River Plastic Survey app and/or the Ocean Plastic Survey app.
2. Pick the environment you wish to survey (stream, river, or other marine surface waterbody of your choice).
3. Pick a safe bridge for rivers or a safe vessel for oceans, and survey in daylight to ensure high visibility and safety.
4. Start! Identify and record plastic items you observe on the water surface by tapping the categories on the survey screen.
5. Once done with your survey, check out The Ocean Cleanup’s global citizen science map where you can find your data.

Why?

• Contribute to a global understanding of plastic pollution in rivers and oceans
• Get involved with The Ocean Cleanup as a citizen scientist
• Help The Ocean Cleanup understand optimal mitigation strategies for each river
• Use our defined categories to count waste items in real time on your screen
• View your reports in your survey list on the app
• View your results on our brand-new global citizen science map

Download River Plastic Survey: on App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ri... on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/ap... Download Ocean Plastic Survey: on App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/oc... on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/ap... If you have any questions, my team will answer these below.

Love something like this! I participated in an SF beach clean up last year and was shocked to find like ten pounds of waste in just 30 minutes. Most of the trash included cigarette butts, napkins, coffee cups, and snack wrappers. Would love for this to eventually even add a City Cleanup Survey and visualization. It's shocking to highlight how polluted our cities and suburbs are. Great great initiative! Super happy this is out here

Very good! I'm very sensitiv about environmentals issues and specifically pollution... Good luck!

This is amazing! My brain is buzzing at the thought of all of the amazing partnerships that await you. You could even start a whole new program like Adopt-a-Highway but for waterways! (Adopt-a-Stream? Adopt-a-River?) Thank you for using your ingenuity to chip away at this enormous problem our planet and its inhabitants face 💕

Very impressed :-)

This is so amazing! Such a great initiative and I love how simple it is to get involved

We are excited to share your enthusiasm about this great opportunity to collect global plastic pollution data. Thank you for your support! And a very warm welcome if you wish to become one of our citizen scientists too :-)

Hey..Great App Really liked it as I am also in business of plastic recycling https://www.atomler.com/ is quite different.