River Plastic Survey

About River Plastic Survey Android App

Are you concerned about the amount of plastic waste ending up in our oceans? Get involved as a citizen scientist by using River Plastic Survey to help The Ocean Cleanup and the global community better understand river plastic pollution. Developed by The Ocean Cleanup’s leading scientists this app is simple to handle and allows you to report to a global database the plastic load in a stream or river near you using your smartphone. This is the first river plastic counting app that enables you to report river plastic in real time.

Why use River Plastic Survey? It is fun, it is easy, and it generates important global data for citizens, scientists, and decision makers to move forward in reducing ocean plastic pollution. By using River Plastic Survey you can join our mission to rid the world’s oceans of plastic and become part of the largest cleanup in history.

How to perform a River Plastic Survey? Download the River Plastic Survey app, go to a stream or river of your choice during daylight, and pick a safe bridge with a decent pedestrian area. Next, log in to your account and choose a survey duration of 5, 15, 30, or 60 minutes. You are now ready to record in real time the plastic items you identify on the water surface by tapping the categories on the survey screen.

Using River Plastic Survey is rewarding:
- Contribute to a global understanding of plastic river pollution-
Help The Ocean Cleanup understand optimal mitigation strategies for every river
- Use our 8 defined categories to count waste items in real time on your screen
- Choose 5, 15, 30, or 60 minutes for your survey
- View your reports in your survey list on the app
- View your results on our global citizen science map

Why do we need River Plastic Surveys?
Rivers represent a major source of plastic pollution. They are widely believed to be the arteries that carry waste from land to the ocean. With over 8 billion tons of plastic produced to date, a significant fraction of discarded products have been leaking into the environment, entering waterways, and reaching the ocean via rivers. We now know that this is currently happening everywhere in the world and we estimate that over 1000 rivers are responsible for 80% of the global riverine plastic inputs into the ocean. The understanding of waste types and quantitative fluxes is important to better inform interception strategies. The data generated by this app (thanks to you)will allow scientists to refine numerical models simulating the terrestrial transport of plastic and better understand emissions. These results will be directly impacting the design and deployment strategy of river cleanup solutions.

Become a part of the largest cleanup in history. As our global database grows, and if you are interested, we might invite you by email to take part in a special survey campaign at one of our rivers of interest.

The River Plastic Survey app only collects information pertinent to surveying rivers and collects your name and email address for authentication and communication purposes.

The following data is collected and sent to our authentication servers during the registration process:
- If you register with a name and email address, your name and email address will be stored on our servers. Your password is never sent to our servers.
- If you register with a social media account, your name, email address, and a link to your social media public profile photo will be stored on our servers.

The following data is stored on our surveying servers when surveying a river:
- At the start of a survey, your location is requested. At that moment (and only at that moment), your GPS coordinates are retrieved, with the highest accuracy possible, to determine which river and bridge you are surveying. No further location tracking or positioning is done.
- Date and time of start and end of survey.
- Bridge and river details and debris counts.
- A randomized string that identifies your account.