Proposal#
The challenge in front of us is to transform the observations into accurate and actionable information for two different purposes. There is the administration of the territory and identification of priorities with regard to plastics in the environment. Then, once the priorities have been established these new indicators must be reported on. This project concerns the infrastructure and processes necessary to identify priorities and develop indicators to reduce plastics in the environment from litter density counts.
Therefore, we propose a haromnised reporting system that is administered by regional or national NGOS in collaboration with an academic partner with the stated goal of producing reliable reports for the public administration and others who communicate on such matters. This allows administrations to identify priorities and set baseline values according to agreed upon and observed indicators.
The first report proved that a relatively small team could cover a large territory with the correct technology. This remains the case. That is why we see this project, in its current itteration, specifically attractive to stakeholders with an internal data-science team. Stakeholders with experience in python or R will feel right at home in the development environment and will be the source of many improvements. For those interested in learning the basics, we are here to coach them and help them in their projects.
The proposal is thus to establish a hub that is dedicated to the collection, cleaning, aggregating and distribution of litter density data. The distribution of the data has the primary goal of producing decision support products to local administrations and other organizations charged with reducing plastics in the environment. The hub is staffed by three people and who conduct surveys, produce value added research, teach other NGOs to collect samples, and respond to requests from local administrations. Activites or changes in protocol are considered in consultation with academic advising team.
Goals#
Develop a reporting and research tool for stakeholders in the waste management, life cycle assessment and environmental monitoring sectors.
Increase capacity of stakeholders to monitor and report observations according to the current standard in the federal report using open source tools.
Assisst in the reduction and prevention of plastics in the environment
Deliverables: three year contract
700 samples
Revised updated federal report
New cantonal and municipal reports
Cloud service for cantonal and municipal reporting
Article for publication
Objectives
Collect 400 - 500 samples in a 12 month period
reduce the number of items reported as fragmented or Gfrags
This value can range from 20% - 30% of the total items collected
include polymer identification for a subset of samples
Subset should support an academic publication
Subset should support a regional assessment of polymer types
Increase knowledge sharing between surveyors
Capacity building for surveyors
Increase the number of associations competent to collect and report data
Develop one association on Lac de Constance or Zurichsee
Develop training materials and protocols with ASL
Strucutre report specifically for cantonal and municipal reporting
Revise and improve the current report
Consider the format of the report given cantonal requirements (attached)
Build upon previous research and reports
Continue to develop modeling and parameter estimation for litter density
Focus on topographical features and densities
Consider polymer types and densities
Define groups of objects of interest with stakeholders
single use plastics
agricultural plastics
construction plastics
industrial plastics
Develop a cloud first infrastructure and chat agent
Move all data and software assests to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Develop machine learning and artificial intelligence pipelines for data analysis
Develop Automated programming interfaces (APIs) for data collection and reporting
Develop a user interface for data collection and reporting
Deploy chat agent
Benchmarks
Year one: Proposed updates and revisions to the fedral report. Prposed model for cantonal and municipal reporting.
Formal research proposal for polymer identification
Formal research proposal for topographical features
Functioning prototype of cloud service
100 samples collected
stakeholder meeting
Year two:
Assesment of software and data collection
Revised report with current data
Update on capacity building
End of year two:
Presentation of revised report with current data
Summary of capacity building
400 samples
stakeholder meeting
Year three:
Presentation of feedback
stakeholder meeting
Proposed changes to app and report
Final report:
implementation of feeedback
200 samples
cloud service for cantonal and municipal reporting
Cost
Less than 1% of the estimated cost to prevent and remove litter annualy in Switzerland. BAFU/OFEV - litter costs
Interested ?#
Interested administrations or other potential financial partners should contact roger at hammerdirt.