On 22nd March, students from East London-based George Green’s School were invited by Thames21 to carry out Thames21’s first 2022 litter survey monitoring session on the Isle of Dogs. The students, ranging from Year 7 to Year 12, worked extremely hard to identify the litter found on the river foreshore. They were given the task of sorting through 281 items that had washed onto the foreshore of the River Thames.
We were extremely impressed with the positive attitude and interest shown from the students of George Green’s School. This litter monitoring was carried out within the H2020 project InNo Plastic. This project is looking at innovative approaches towards prevention, removal and reuse of marine plastic litter. These clean ups will take place twice a year using a comprehensive monitoring system to gather data on the quantity of plastics and other litter categories appearing in marine locations.
The volunteers from George Green’s School collected all the litter they could find in a 156m wide area along the River Thames. After collecting the litter, they sorted through it and organised them into multiple categories to determine what litter was present.
Results: The students collected 6 bags of litter and 11 larger items including a traffic cone. To see what was included in the list of litter they found please refer to the diagram below.
In December 2021, a similar survey was carried out on the Isle of Dogs by Thames21 volunteers as part of the Thames River Watch monitoring. In the space of three months, the number of sweet wrappers found has increased by 91 items, and the number of takeaway containers, plastic cups, tobacco pouches, e-cigs, condoms, large items and nitrous oxide has also demonstrated an increase. This signifies the further need for litter removal clean ups and additional technologies as per the InNo Plastics project.
Thank you again to George Green’s School for their amazing effort and participation.
Would you like to come down to this amazing space with us or take part in your own clean up or monitoring survey? Follow Thames21’s ‘What’s On’ page and sign up to our newsletter to find out more. If you would like to find out more about InNo Plastic, please visit its website.