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Help with plastics spotting project

paul_in_surreypaul_in_surrey Posts: 239
in The potting shed
If any of you have some time on your hands and would like to help a project trying to identify the amount of plastics littering our beaches, the British Science Association are trying to teach drones to distinguish plastics from general beach material (shells, driftwood, etc). It simply involves looking at pictures taken by the drones and drawing a box around any plastic bottles, straws, etc, you can spot. It runs to the end of British Science Week (Sunday 18th March 2018). Here's the link:
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/theplastictide/the-plastic-tide?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=announce14mar2018

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill

Posts

  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    We are not near a beach but my OH goes out walking a lot around the country lanes. He takes a big bag with him and brings back loads of rubbish, all coca and Pepsi bottles, unfortunately this flys out the back of the recycling lorry. It’s not drivers in cars, there’s rarely any around here.   
    My recycling box goes out once a month, unless he’s been on a ramble😀
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • fidgetbonesfidgetbones Posts: 17,618
    My last trip to the seaside (new Years day) I bought a builders bag off of the beach, filled with plastic and glass bottles. Have you ever seen a child with broken glass in their foot? Most people we passed looked at us as if we were mad.
  • paul_in_surreypaul_in_surrey Posts: 239
    Just to be clear - you don't need to go to a beach to help with this project. It's purely a computer based thing you can do in front of the TV for 2 minutes or whatever you can manage. It's simply that it needs lots of people giving a little help, and human eyes can distinguish things like plastic from pebble much better than a computer. It's one of the few remaining things we are still better at!!
    “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    A great project. Thanks for posting the info
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Agree Firefly  :)  I've also passed it on to friends who live on the coast and do regular beach cleans, as they've a good eye for plastic waste and they've done several sessions already. 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    It seems that you don’t have to go to a beach or live near one, the idea is to teach the computer programme how to spot plastic waste on the beach. 
    I don’t think my eye would pick anything out, but will have a look.

    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

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