Solution: GLOBAL ALERT Floating Trash
To address the problem of increasing plastic pollution flowing to our waterways and ocean, Ocean Recovery Alliance has created Global Alert, an innovative online tool that increases interaction and connectivity to plastic pollution by allowing users to report, rate and map trash hot-spots in their waterways and coastlines via mobile devices and a web-based platform. This information and engagement broadens awareness, aggregates information flow, and spurs solutions to reduce plastic waste flowing from our rivers and streams, and into the ocean. Global Alert accomplishes this goal by addressing a number of issues that include:
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Enabling community participation for reporting and problem solving, thus shrinking the gap in awareness about floating trash for those living upriver and the ocean. This is done through visual online maps, clear data comparisons, empowered community engagement and effective communication.
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Highlighting the need for consistent and active stewardship focusing on rivers as a source of debris outflow, and the responsibility that local communities and governments have towards keeping them clean.
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Providing a global awareness and monitoring tool to allow broad audiences to gain knowledge of hotspots, or troubled areas, stimulating the potential for cleanup or capture of plastic pollution.
By visualizing the problems on a map, along with being able to learn about best practices for cleanup and prevention programs, community groups can develop better recycling programs and plastic management strategies, ultimately leading to less floating trash making its way to the ocean. Global Alert is easy for citizens and school groups to See, Share and Solve their floating trash problems. Users can upload photos of trash in their water systems or coastlines, and enter relevant and helpful data about the volume of trash they see. Monitoring agencies and community groups can add, review, visualize and analyze their own data, as well as Global Alert data provided by the community, empowering them to make positive steps for improvements.
Global Alert is an international tool to help tackle the problem of plastic waste in our environment, and is something that all of us can use within our own local conditions in order to be part of the solution. The sum of all the parts will help to bring broad-based improvements on a global scale. Global Alert will shape the way that communities play an integral role in bettering their environments; inspiring cooperation, collaboration and solutions. Together we can leave a legacy of healthy oceans, rivers and engaged communities.
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