Palmy's Plastic Pollution Challenge

About

A Citizen Science project, establishing a baseline of plastic pollution in the waterways in Palmerston North City

Mission

We aim to collect data from 40 randomly selected sample sites on streams running through Palmerston North to get a better idea of the overall size of the plastic pollution issue in the city.

We will collect all the litter in 100 square metre sections of the stream. The litter will be cleaned, dried, sorted and measured to establish a baseline of what plastics are currently lingering in our streams.

We hope that by engaging citizens in the data collection, you will have a hands on chance to learn about the scientific method we are using, as well as increasing awareness of the issues around plastic pollution in our own back yard.

We hope that this will lead to conversations, behaviour change, idea generation, and ultimately a strategy for how to improve the situation in our streams, rivers and oceans.