A new environmental campaign has just launched in Portsmouth which aims to combat plastic waste in the city.

Members of the public will be able to record any rubbish they spot by taking photos and uploading to an app, which will then be analysed to better understand the patterns and movement of plastic waste in the city.

According to organisers, there is currently no reliable data about where plastic pollution is found in cities or why it ends up there, and it is the first time that anything of this scale has been organised in the world.

The MAPP project is being spearheaded by the University of Portsmouth which hopes to help other cities reduce plastic waste. The university has teamed up with environmental company Jetsam Tech to produce the app.

Local people can simply download the app on their mobile phones and submit photographs of the plastic waste they encounter in their daily lives.

Professor Steve Fletcher, Director of Revolution Plastics at the University of Portsmouth, was excited at the potential for the project to help tackle one of the biggest environmental challenges we face.

With climate change very much on the agenda at the moment, it is developments like this that can and will make a real difference.

The more people that use the app, the more researchers will understand about plastic flows within the city and ultimately work to tackle plastic waste at source.

Louis Capitanchik, Co-founder of Jetsam Tech, said he hoped the app would empower local communities to make a meaningful difference to the environment in their area. He commented:

As an island city with an active community, Portsmouth is the ideal laboratory for an initiative like this. Once we’ve proven that a community driven project can make meaningful environmental change, we can take Jetsam on the road and make a difference around the world.

To find out more about the MAPP project, visit: port.ac.uk/research/research-projects/mapp. 

Image by the University of Porstmouth