Ocean trash is a big problem. Cleanup efforts so far have had mixed success, and it's also potentially very expensive. Currents and tides also move trash around -- gun shells used in eastern Canada have been found in Scotland. A study indicated that cleanup efforts near the coasts were the most effective, and they're also likely to be the most cost-effective. It csn be challenging to locate trash automatically; it's currently not feasible to use satellite photos for this, although some work has been done on identifying spectral signatures associated with plastic. Predicting where trash will go is also challenging -- although the major currents are well-known, other factors can also influence movement.

Our project maps crowd-sourced images of ocean debris, including the time, location, and other metadata, along with current and wind information. Our application allows users to filter photos based on metadata tags and dates. This should help people predict where trash may be going, and when, which will help support cleanup efforts as well as researchers.

Link to presentation:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PdiQNpi0esx2WbN1R...

Github repo:

https://github.com/wayward710/snaptrash