It’s certainly disheartening to see trash while you're out enjoying our beautiful national parks, but what if you could do more about it than just picking it up? That’s where a new website, TrashBlitz, comes in.
Developed by nonprofit 5 Gyres, TrashBlitz was created as the first phase of an initiative to help the U.S. get a better picture of littering problems in its 63 national parks. Users simply register on the website and then use it to enter data on any pieces of trash that they find in said parks, such as what kind it was and exactly where it was.
This data collection phase of the initiative runs from July through September. After that, 5 Gyres will compile all the data into a report to be published in the fall. The goal is to help the U.S. Department of the Interior improve its plan to phase out single-use plastics on public lands. “We hope that the data from Plastic-Free Parks TrashBlitz can help to identify the top items and brands that are polluting national parks to determine where we need to shift our focus first,” said 5 Gyres Policy and Outreach Manager Alison Waliszewski.
