Researchers from the University of Groningen seeking to map out the plastic pollution from the MSC Zoe container spill say that they still need help from citizens with the project.
Translation by Traci White
Professor Tjisse van der Heide told Omrop Fryslân that the project had plenty of citizen volunteers helping out by reporting the areas where they had spotted plastic on the islands when Wadden Plastic launched several weeks ago, “but that is kind of drying up now.”
Professor Van Der Heide and post doc Laura Govers are the researchers behind the project, which sought to register the areas on the islands where plastic had been located. The idea is to create a map of the region to show where the plastic has wound up due to tide and wind.
Nearly a month after the MSC Zoe lost 291 containers in the North Sea, most of the coordinated volunteer clean-ups are done, so the website is getting fewer reports, but the researchers suspect that there are areas on the islands that has not been added to the map. The data for the map will eventually be provided to the Public Works and Water Management department.
Van Der Heide is calling on vacation goers, island residents and nature managers to file any found plastic for the project.
