TRASH DATA
1706
bottle caps picked up from 2/2020 to 2/2021
100
foot long survey transects
62+
survey locations in Texas
1
plastic dinosaur named Dino, found on El Jardin Beach and adopted as a mascot
WHAT IS AQUATIC TRASH?
People who enjoy building sandcastles and other fun activities at the beach may have noticed trash or strange objects on the shore like empty food containers or a lonely flip flop. Trash and forgotten objects like these that are found in bodies of water such as rivers, lakes, and oceans are called aquatic trash or marine debris.
CLEANING UP OUR ACT
The Take 2 for Texas team started surveys in February of 2020. We had grand plans for big monthly trash cleanups with tons of volunteers!
Then COVID hit in March 2020. Suddenly we had to redesign the program to keep all of our survey participants healthy and safe. Grand community driven trash events were just not possible. So we developed protocol that folks could complete AND follow CDC guidelines to stay safe in the pandemic.
MUD 'N FUN
Below is an interactive map of our surveyed sites. This will be continuously updated as new data comes in. We've seen some amazing hidden parts of Houston and Galveston Bay. Won't you come join us?
BY THE NUMBERS
Below are some of our statistics from the first year of sampling (February 2020- February 2021). We were unable to do surveys from March- May of 2020 due to COVID.
On the STOP surveys, we track 63 specific item categories like straws, plastic pottles, plastic bags, etc.
These smaller item categories can be lumped together under broader groups. These groups represent the material used for the items.
This is a pie chart showing our broad groups and the percentage of individual items we've found.
This table shows the average number of individual pieces of trash we find on a survey.
For example, based on our first year of data, we can expect to see about 123 individual hard plastic items at one survey site!
This table shows some of the most common items we find and the average / median number of each we expect to see at one survey site.
Our first few surveys in late February were right before the pandemic shut down occurred.
In May when we were able to begin field work again, we started finding PPE masks and gloves.
This chart shows the total number of PPE items found each month.