About
LitterWatch Victoria launched July 2020. It is a publicly accessible system to manage and view different datasets. Data is provided by individuals, community groups and other organisations either directly into the system or via Beach Patrol's LitterStopper app.
The Mapping page shows where the litter surveys occur and provides tools to compare litter from different areas and time periods. Check out the Resources page for guides to use LitterWatch and litter reports.
Background
Communities, organisations and government invest time and resources to manage litter. They also often collect information about litter composition and amount. The data collected provides valuable information and trends. If the data is consistent, stored together, and shareable it would help identify where to focus future effort and investment.
Initial engagement with stakeholders revealed that until now:
- Victoria lacked a clear central location to store, interact with and extract litter data;
- Strategic planning was not using information from the litter surveys being undertaken;
- Groups carried out surveys and categorised litter in different ways making it difficult to compare litter data;
- Many were spending time and effort storing and manipulating their own data with limited access to bigger datasets.
After exploring several options, we landed on a central online system – LitterWatch Victoria.
We created LitterWatch with Victorian groups active in litter management. We will continue to work together towards consistent and comparable litter data.
Vision
Litter and plastic pollution are increasing challenges. The vision of this project is a public statewide dataset of litter. This will be easy to access and use for reporting, planning, policy making and engagement.
Data from LitterWatch Victoria supports priority actions in the State Government's Port Phillip Bay Environmental Management Plan 2017-2020.
