The Rivers Trust is on the lookout for community litter-pick groups to clean up litter from the area and record their findings using an online system. If you are taking part in litter picks anywhere in and around the Great Ouse/Cam already, or would like to, you could make a valuable contribution to our pioneering Preventing Plastic Pollution (PPP) project. The Rivers Trust can provide all the necessary equipment and are happy to meet and support interested teams on University sites.

The data you provide will be used over the next three years to inform conversations between PPP and communities, businesses and industries to determine effective ways to better manage plastic waste and protect biodiversity and ecosystems. The findings of the project will be collated into policy guidance with relevance both in and beyond the Channel area.

Join us on 26 January 2021 to hear Clare Whitelegg from The Rivers Trust speak about the PPP project or contact Clare directly (clare.whitelegg@theriverstrust.org) for information on how to get involved.

About the project

Globally, about 80% of plastic pollution comes from terrestrial sources₁ and approximately 4 million tonnes of plastic waste enters the sea via rivers every year₂; yet we lack a baseline of the extent of this pollution and an understanding of its origin.

Preventing Plastic Pollution (PPP) is an EU-funded project for the Channel region. Eighteen partner organisations in England and France are working together to measure and tackle plastic pollution in seven river catchments, including the Great Ouse/Cam. The project will further scientific understandings of the movement of plastic pollution in the freshwater environment. In addition, it will reduce plastic entering both river catchments and, eventually, the marine environment. This has never been done in river catchments on this scale before.

By looking at the catchment from source to sea, Preventing Plastic Pollution aims to:

• Identify and target hotspots for plastic by monitoring and measuring plastic going into the rivers, including microplastics.
• Trial and measure the impact of interventions to remove plastic from the catchments.
• Trial methods to change plastic use in local communities and businesses.
• Recommend best practice to government.

Through the community litter-picking initiative, plastic pollution entering the river catchments will be identified and weighed. The project will use data collection categories set out in the OSPAR criteria for marine litter to ensure that data is standardised across the region. The data can then be analysed alongside other datasets to understand where plastic litter is coming from, including how much is coming from sources such as agriculture or the road network. The Rivers Trust are also working in partnership with Queen Mary University of London who are carrying out sampling for microplastics across the Great Ouse catchment (pictured above).

For any Green Impact teams out there, this would be a great project to meet actions WFH042, G058 or CT096 from the Working From Home, Gold or College workbooks.

Follow PPP and Preventing Plastic Pollution-Great Ouse on Twitter to stay up-to-date on project developments and see how you can make a difference.

Written by Clare Whitelegg and Rebecca Duncan

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₁ GESAMP, 2016

₂ Schmidt et al 2017. Environ. Sci. Technol. 51, 12246-12253