For the past several years, we’ve worked with University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension and New Hampshire Sea Grant to study marine debris and make our cleanup data accessible to the public.
Anytime we do a cleanup, we enter the data into an online database that’s hosted at UNH. Summaries of these results are available online, including a summary of cleanup results by year and even the top 5 items picked up at each beach, each year.
In addition to the data we collect at cleanups, we’re interested in learning what types of litter are lurking offshore. On whale watches, we record every piece of litter we see. We can’t always pick it up, but we can learn about the types of litter that are most prevalent and figure out how to prevent litter in the future. Click here to see the top litter items we see offshore.
Our datasets are available to educators or resource managers. If you’re interested in receiving raw data, let us know.
Check Out the Data! (link will open in a new window)
