Well, we're already three months into 2022, and just publishing this blog - which is an an accurate reflection of how busy our team is with new and exciting projects! Although we're already starting off strong with another year of data collection, we wanted to take some time to reflect on the truly inspiring efforts of our community in 2021.

Last year, the Debris Tracker community set its sights on new horizons. We set a goal at the beginning of the year of reaching a personal best of one million items logged in a single year – a moonshot type of big, lofty goal.

We are here to report that we did not hit our goal. In 2021, we far exceeded it. Our moonshot landed us among the stars with 1,557,974 items logged.

"This scale of data collection would be impossible without the thousands of members of the Debris Tracker community" says Dr. Jenna Jambeck, co-founder of the Debris Tracker app and a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Georgia.

1.5 million items logged – a new annual record!

We are so amazed by the incredible effort of volunteers around the world – from 81 countries to be exact – that made this level of data collection possible. This type of data is incredibly valuable to understand what plastic pollution looks like around the world, and helps us build a bigger picture of the problem that we use towards solutions.

2021 map of Debris Tracker data recorded in over 80 countries around the globe:

2021 map of Debris Tracker data logged in the United States:

Solutions to the plastic pollution problem are still desperately needed. This year, Debris Tracker users recorded over 350,000 plastic and foam fragments, 200,000 cigarettes, and 123,000 food wrappers. Any one can explore this full dataset or look at what the top items were in their community by visiting debristracker.org/data.

Behind this impressive global effort is individual users making a difference. Dr. Jambeck says:

"Citizen science and open data allows communities to capture and share data that can be used to take action."

Every little bit of data makes a difference. If you tracked even one item last year, thank you for your effort. Our team is sincerely grateful for the effort from each and every volunteer.

If this is the first you're hearing of us, we would love to have you join our community this year. Happy tracking!