OpenLitterMap

Every piece of litter tells a story but not everyone wants this story told.

OpenLitterMap is an open source citizen science platform with a simple mission: empower people to map litter & plastic pollution to tell a story and educate the world.

Since 2008, one self-funded engineer did the research and built the tools that most Universities should be doing to empower people to tell the story of pollution in their community — and educate the world about litter.

Most platforms are not open. We have no idea how they are using our data or what is happening behind the scenes. Open source is publicly available code that can be audited and inspected by engineers, allowing society to learn and work together, and fork the code and reuse it. You don't have to take our word for it, you can audit the code yourself.

6 versions of OpenLitterMaps mobile app took more than 6 years to develop. This latest mobile app release (v7) was built almost entirely in a single day. AI has transformed our work and we are continuing to make rapid progress.

In this latest release we have introduced a new tagging system. Critical GPS bugs on Android have been fixed. There is still a lot more to do and we will get it done.

So far, OpenLitterMap has received more than half-a-million geotagged observations across 110+ countries. All of it loads on the global map in a fraction of a second. New people are joining every day to empower themselves with the production of geographic information. All our code & data is open source, allowing anyone to be a part of the research and storytelling.

HOW IT WORKS

First, enable location services on your device. Then, all your photos will be geotagged.

Second, take good quality photos of litter objects. Get close so we can really see what it is.

Finally, tag what you see and upload it. Every upload generates a unique geolink in real-time that you can share with anyone. This is a real-time reporting service, and much more.

MAP ANYTHING

Choose from 200+ pre-defined tags across dozens of categories — or use our custom tags to map anything: potholes, sticky floors, broken benches, inaccessible footpaths... Litter is just the first application of this real-world data collection technology. OpenLitterMap is the first tool — use it however you want.

OPEN SOURCE

Our code is public. You can read it, audit it, use it, and contribute to it. The data you generate is open too — anyone can download it for free, for any purpose, without permission. Over 100 peer-reviewed academic papers have cited OpenLitterMap.

FEATURES

→ Geotagged photo upload with automatic location detection
→ 200+ litter types plus custom tags for mapping anything
→ Material and brand tagging
→ XP, streaks, and leaderboards
→ Teams for schools, cleanups, and community groups
→ Real-time global litter map on openlittermap.com
→ Open data — download all data without permission
→ Open source — audit and contribute to the code
→ Privacy by default — anonymous until you choose otherwise

Recognised as a UN Digital Public Good. Cited in 100+ academic publications.

Used by 1,000s of people in 100+ countries

openlittermap.com
github.com/openlittermap