Take 3 CEO Tim Silverwood on ABC News 24 discussing our citizen science campaign 29th Jan. 2017

Take 3 for the Sea co-founder and CEO Tim Silverwood spoke on ABC News 24 about the problem of plastic pollution and how the organisation plans to reduce it.

To combat the growing problem Take 3 have launched a citizen science campaign, and they need YOU to get involved. It's called 'Pick it up. Snap it. Share it.' and it's really simple.

The instructions are at the bottom of this post or you can visit www.facebook.com/groups/take3forthesea to get started.

The key to the ongoing success of this citizen science campaign will be the development of leading technology to track and record people's clean up efforts. Take 3 will require considerable investment in this technology and the creative processes to drive participation. With the right partners and funding anything is possible! Imagine an app like Pokemon Go that instantly recorded the trash data using object recognition software and made picking up rubbish a fun game! We would love to hear from anyone willing to support us, feel free to contact us if you're interested.

In the video you will see some of the hundreds of images that have already been submitted, we would like to thank EVERYONE who has already participated. For those of you yet to get involved, here's the instructions:

1. Conduct a 'micro clean up' (Pick it up.)
spend 1 to 30 minutes cleaning rubbish from an area. It could be a street, beach, park...anywhere.

2. Lay the collected rubbish on a flat clear surface and take a photo. (Snap it.)
please make the photograph as clear as possible with each item clearly visible. Try to limit the number of items in each image to 20-40 pieces (you can take more than one photo if needed). Feel free to sort into rubbish categories for the photo. Count the number of pieces and, if you wish, you can record additional detailed information (eg. type, brand, source).

3. Share it.
in order to validate your clean up efforts we now need you to share the image with the world. We recommend sharing the image to the special Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/take3forthesea or directly on your account. You can also share it on Instagram or Twitter, just make sure you use the hashtag #take3forthesea so we can find it! It's VERY IMPORTANT you include the following information when you share the image:
where were you? (geotag the location eg. #BondiBeach
how long did you clean up for (eg. #10minutes)
how many people participated (eg. #1person)
how many pieces of rubbish are in the image (eg. #23pieces)
If you want to you can record other information too including: the area/ distance you covered, the recent weather the area has experienced, the brands/ types of rubbish you found etc.

And that's it! You did it! You're now a citizen scientist!

We really hope you can help us catalogue the removal of 300,000 pieces of rubbish from the environment to prove to the world that this technology is needed.

Additional information about this video:

This segment features footage from Tim Silverwood - Environmentalist's 2011 voyage to the North Pacific Gyre (aka Great Pacific Garbage Patch) with Algalita Marine Research and Education. You can clearly see the impact of plastic pollution in the ocean with large ghost nets drifting dangerously in the vast ocean whilst samples from manta trawls reveal large amounts of microplastic mixed with consumer items like pen lids, plastic caps and even a toy gorilla. The footage of the shoreline clean up of microplastic is from the notorious Kamilo Beach in Hawaii. The trip to this remote coastline in 2011 was made possible through the generous support of the organisation B.E.A.C.H Hawaii. Tim would like to thank Markus Marcus Eriksen from 5 Gyres for his leadership on this expedition. You can also watch Tim's TEDx talk here:    • TEDxNewy 2011 - Tim Silverwood - How ...  

We'd like to thank a number of people for their kind voluntary support on the 'Pick it up. Snap it. Share it. citizen science campaign to date including: Cyn Coco, Mel Lake from Bird Music (who lined up this interview), Olivia Pirie-Griffiths, Scott Wilson from Macquarie University, Florent Gomez-Bonnet and ALL the avid group members who've been Picking. Snapping and Sharing!

For more information on Take 3:

www.take3.org
www.instagram.com/take3forthesea