Texas Litter Database

Litter is a hazard for wildlife and humans, spreading disease and injuring or killing wildlife. Over 1 million marine animals (including mammals, fish, sharks, turtles, and birds) are killed each year due to plastic debris in the ocean (UNESCO Facts & Figures on Marine Pollution). 

Nine Texas cities spend over $50 million dollars per year to deal with litter and illegal dumping (Burns & McDonnell report, Texans for Clean Water). The Keep America Beautiful 2020 National Litter Study estimated nearly 50 billion pieces of litter along U.S. roadways and waterways, equaling approximately 152 pieces of litter per person in the United States (Burns & McDonnell 2020). 

 HARC  and  Keep Texas Beautiful  are building a state-wide litter database to track and leverage the litter collection efforts across Texas. Funded by the Garver, Black, Hilyard Family Foundation, the STOP Texas Litter Database is an essential step towards greater collaboration between organizations cleaning up litter and the organizations researching litter impacts, sources, pathways, and removal. 

Detailed litter clean-up audits provide a full picture of Texas’s litter problem, but are labor and time intensive. Anyone can enter a 2 minute bottle count under Take 2 For Texas. 

For those that have more time, they can do a full audit catalog of the data. Registered STOP Texas Litter Database users can create an Event, share it, and enter a Report of the litter they picked up. The data can be explored via the map or graphs pages and all of the data can be downloaded here.

Did you Take 2 For Texas? Just picking up all the plastic bottles you can find in 2 minutes will help us get a better idea of how we can help stop plastic pollution in Texas. You can enter that data  here  or by clicking the Create button and choosing Take 2 For Texas in the pop-up. 

If you are interested in entering litter count/audit data, you will need to create an event or use an event that has already been created. Do you have a link or QR code to get here? Sign in and enter your data. You will need to create a username and password to enter litter count/audit data.

Cleanups are organized by Event (i.e., “HARC Earth Day Cleanup”) which may be one day or last several days, under which there can be multiple Reports (i.e. “Blue Trail creek”, “West Parking Lot”). Every Report must be under an Event. 

Reports should be from a single location and collection effort. If you must combine multiple cleanups into a single Report, please indicate that in the Notes field.

You can search for all Events on the Event List page

To create a new Event or Report, use the Create button on the upper left. To see your Events and/or Reports, login and use the Dashboard button on the upper right. The Dashboard will display shortcuts to your events, trash reports, and Take 2 for Texas reports. You can also download a field data sheet. 

When you create an Event, choose a name that is descriptive and will make it easier to find later – either by you or by partners who might be submitting Reports under this Event. We recommend something like: Organization Event title General location Date Year (i.e. HARC Earth Day Cleanup The Woodlands 2021). You will need to enter a start date, organizer name and contact info – either email or phone number.

To enter data, create a Report. On the Report, you can enter an address, use the location on your device, or drop a pin on a map. You will also need to enter a date and time, site name, and site type. You may enter multiple site types, but please consider submitting separate reports if you have truly distinct site types.  

The TX Litter Database is designed to allow all types of data to be reported. You do not need to fill in every field, but the more information you can provide, the better. If you created a detailed count or audit of your litter collection, you can answer the preliminary questions and then toggle the Detailed Trash Classification button to expand and view all of the data entry categories. Please be sure to enter your Distance surveyed, and if you used Volunteers, enter how many and their approximate ages. If you only audited some of your total collection, indicate how much of your total cleanup you counted under Site Info. 

Several trash audit methodologies exist in addition to the TX Litter Database’s  STOP method . NOAA and EPA also have their own methodologies. Our goal is to provide a place for all Texas litter cleanups, regardless of methodologies.

STOP (Study, Track, Remove and Prevent) Instructions:

Step 1: Measure or pace off a line along the shoreline, roadside, or streambank. Along this line, pick up every single piece of trash you see. Try to do 100 ft long lines. If that’s too much, go for a shorter length. Just make sure to record whatever length you are using to report in the database.

Step 2: After you’ve collected all of the trash, record the number of individual items on the STOP datasheet. Write down the length of your transect and be sure to record your location. You can do that on the app by opening a Report in  TXLitter.org  and recording your location. You can either add your items at that time or save your report and go back to it later.

If you can only count a portion of your data, note how much you actually collected and how much you audited

Two maps display a subset of the data in the STOP Texas Litter Database. The full data count associated with each site and all types can be obtained through data download.

The first map “Cluster”, selected at the top of the map window, shows a cluster of nine selected trash types by location. You can select the trash types that you would like to see displayed in the box under the map and then click “update” to view your selection. The nine types of trash are representative of some of the most common types found in field audits.  

The second map, “Heatmap”, selected at the top of the map window, shows relative amount of those nine types of trash collected at different locations around Texas. You can also select certain trash types that you would like to see displayed in the box under the map and then click “update” to view your selection. 

The maps can be found  here .

You can explore the data by viewing  summary graphs  of the data in the STOP Texas Litter Database.  

The top left chart shows the amount (pieces) of litter collected in each category by date. Categories can be turned on and off by clicking the colors in legend at the top of the chart. The green line indicates the number of reports represented by the counts. Using the mouse to hover over a bar in the chart reveals a text box with the counts for each litter category. You can contract the dates range of the x-axis by clicking on one end of the gray box below the chart and dragging it one way or another. 

The top right chart shows the amount (pieces) of litter collected of eight selected types by date. Litter types can be turned on and off by clicking the colors in legend at the top of the chart. The green line indicates the number of reports represented by the counts. Using the mouse to hover over a bar in the chart reveals a text box with the counts for each litter type. You can contract the dates range of the x-axis by clicking on one end of the gray box below the chart and dragging it one way or another. 

The bottom left chart shows the number of plastic bottles collected by Take 2 for Texas surveys by date. The green line indicates the number of reports represented by the counts. You can contract the dates range of the x-axis by clicking on one end of the gray box below the chart and dragging it one way or another. 

The bottom right chart shows the relative amounts (counts) of litter types collected on each date. Using the mouse to hover over a color in the chart reveals a text box with the counts for that litter type. You can also click on a color in the chart, and the chart will adjust to center the chosen rectangle. Below the chart, dates can be scrolled through using the arrow button or a time-lapse can be displayed by clicking on the red “play” button.  

The primary function of the Texas Litter Database is to provide users with the ability to contribute to and access a repository for Texas-wide litter collection data. You can quickly  download  all of the data in the database here after you check the box agreeing to the data disclaimer. The data will download in a zip file and be available in .csv format. 

The cluster map on  TXLitter.org  displays data entered into the TX Litter Database. The counts of individual types of litter (9 representative categories) are clustered to show their geographic distribution. The user can zoom in and around the state to differentiate the clusters and explore the data distribution in more geographic detail. The following maps reflect data through December 2021. For the most up to date data and maps, visit the Texas Litter Database  Maps  page. 

Take 2 for Texas is a rapid assessment developed to provide the public with an easy to perform, easy to share method of counting plastic beverage bottles that can be replicated on beaches as easily as roadsides. Anyone can take two minutes for Texas litter, anywhere!

By creating a state-wide beverage bottle litter count, citizen scientists (like you) can help us find out where these bottles are ending up, so we can start working on preventing them from entering our waterways. 

Fugro, in partnership with HARC, performed a visual analysis of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) datasets. LiDAR is a remote sensing method used to examine the surface of the Earth in detail. The concept of the project was to test the feasibility of using remote sensing data for automatic recognition of debris hotspots. Fugro is a company that specializes in developing unique signatures that interpret the LiDAR data. Experts at Fugro Geospatial have developed a method to process the LiDAR data to differentiate edge lines of waterways. Implementing this method, they can search for features that are above the water surface and are not a water signature or noise (i.e., debris, animals, vegetation). They then further refined signatures to see if it is possible to distinguish debris items for HARC analysis. 

 A previous debris LiDAR study utilized point cloud data collected by terrestrial LiDAR to successfully detect debris on a sandy beach that was deliberately “seeded” with litter. The experimental conditions of the Fugro feasibility study were considerably more challenging. The study utilized 4 points per square meter (ppsm) and 25 ppsm LiDAR data collected over bayous, beaches, and waterways to attempt detection of floating or land-based debris fields in the environment. HARC provided known “hotspots” of litter for field truthing. The hotspots were identified working in coordination with partners from the Partners in Litter Prevention (PLP) as well as sampling sites identified by BlackCat GIS during their field work. Fugro and HARC had theorized that with the 4 and 25 ppsm data, areas of @100 square feet that might indicate debris could be identified. However, in the sites reviewed potential debris had similar characteristics to most shoreline environments and were not able to be distinguished from natural features such as existing organic debris and vegetation. Fugro’s report state that 22% of floatable screen locations and 40% of the litter hotspot areas were reviewed and none of these showed any obvious debris spots with the LiDAR.  

Known litter hotspots were selected for comparison to LiDAR imagery (Image 1, 2 and 3). A review of existing Google Earth orthoimagery was to determine the general characteristics of the area in terms of vegetation, bare earth, and structures to help with the elevation data analysis. Image 1 is the Google Maps image of the site. Image 2 (left) shows the same site for analysis, with a green rectangle identifying a subsection for cross-sectional analysis. Image 3 (right) shows the cross-section review of the selected green square of the site. 

Current resolution for this project makes distinguishing litter types or even identifying features as litter a challenge. In image 4, one kitchen tile represents a pixel, or what could be represented by one point at 50 cm post spacing. 

 In summary, the Fugro results showed that the 4 ppsm and 25 ppsm LiDAR data showed several major obstacles in being able to positively identify areas with debris. In areas where they were successful, it took considerable time and effort, which is not ideal for development on a large-scale basis.  

Fugro investigated the possibility of using high density 100 ppsm data. However, the current availability of 100 ppsm data is limited due to the expense of the data, which makes it hard to find areas with data for ground truthing. The recommendation for a feasibility study of the 100 ppsm data would be to coordinate placing debris spots in a known project area the day or two before the flying is to occur so that many spots and areas of known debris are cataloged.

Created by HARC with Keep Texas Beautiful and Black Cat GIS with funding from the Garver Black Hilyard Family Foundation