Basics

This page aims to go over the Remediation (ie Cleanup) of Litter (Most of which can also be under the umbrella of “Plastic Pollution”
While this is not THE solution (“if you want to stop the house flooding, you must turn off the tap” etc) Single Use Plastic Alternatives / Litter Reduction Strategies etc will be discussed elsewhere!

Scope

The Approach Depends on Location
- Carpet-Like Heavily Maintained Turfgrass such as in Lawns or Highway Medians etc may allow for somewhat “fresh” litter to be Easily Visibly Discernible, and quickly collected by hand, with grabbers, or swept up with Brooms/Rakes and Shovels etc
- Heavily Weathered Litter in Unmaintained Areas, or Buried underneath Soil/Vegetation is far more difficult to Visually “pick out”, and may require more careful (and time consuming) collection
- Marine Litter is deserving of it’s own page, although in Tributaries/Streams etc, having equipment on hand when remediating “on shore” may still be of use
Since ‘’’there is plastic in the wind and rain’’’ etc no area can TRULY be clean, but Micro/Nano-Plastic Pollution Remediation is also worth having it’s own page

Finally got around to cleaning up (part of) that ditch/stream at work since most of the other busy work was done
It’s a little stream in a semi-forested area on the property owned by work, but absolutely FILLED with trash/litter that gets washed in by the rain etc (Also some legacy litter from the site, and some recent String Trimmer debris etc)
Density is about a Drum Liner every few square yards

Mostly
- Plastic Drink Bottles
- Plastic Chip Bags
- Plastic Cigarette/Cigarillo Holder Bits
  - Some other associated smoking debris such as Bic Lighters and Cigarette Boxes etc
- Mini Alcohol Bottles
- Polystyrene Foam drink cups/cooler bits
Also some less frequent stuff like:
- Metal Drinking Cans
- Clothes Hangers
- Flip Flops or other Shoes etc
- Plastic Take Out Containers
A Good bit of few cm square microplastic bits
Probably plenty of PROPER M/Np Dust

A bit haphazard all things considered
I did one section in the past mostly by myself
Today was with one other person
I had grabbed
- A Snow Shovel/“Drywall Shovel” etc
- Some Rakes (Conventional Metal, Rigid “Steel Rake”, a Plastic Rake (thinking i’d be a bit “softer” on highly weathered stuff etc)
- A “Grabber”
- Some drum liners
It was kind of “shaded forest floor” in most spots short of a few grass/dirt patches
- Also had some stream sections with stuff in the water etc
Digging through twigs and whatnot took WAY longer than clean patches (or the more usual cleaning up a Beach / Parking Lot / Lawn etc)
Also since much of the stuff was weathered to the point it was becoming part of the soil/soon to be fossil record etc that level of dirtnyness/scratched up aspects etc made some of the stuff a bit camouflaged, so it was a bit like “i spy”; the longer you looked the more you foind
In a few hours though got maybe 5 Yards “down” the stream and a couple yards wide to a “good enough” standard of clean
- Snobby me wants to go back on Monday/next time and clear up all the small “larger “than micro but not full bottles etc” level microplastics up, but from afar it no longer looks like an Unofficial Dumping Site ‘’’in that section’’’ which is nice

Cheapest
Can be as simple as Trash Bags and Disposable Gloves
Lends itself well to Swarming
- Beach Cleanups exist as a pretty good example of this
- Plogging or something similar, ESPECIALLY if done with a School or similar group may be a good route of this as well
Main Downside is Work-Hour Requirements, especially if low on Laborers