OpenLitterMap applies blockchain Proof of Work mining principles to Citizen Science for the first time and rewards people with Littercoin for doing the work. Our vision is to create an incentive to reward people for Cleaning The Planet which can save us potentially trillions in environmental damage. A whitepaper on the specifics will launch when it’s ready. With enough incentive, I believe it will be possible to get a good picture of the world’s plastic pollution in as little as 15 minutes.

https://medium.com/@littercoin/it-makes-economic-sense-to-pay-people-to-clean-the-planet-that-is-the-vision-for-littercoin-525abcaafe83

Every day, somewhere- plastic quietly slips into the ocean. Over 12 months, this is believed to be in the range of 8–12 million tonnes. Worse, this is expected to continue to increase exponentially if current trends continue. It is commonly believed that 60–90% of this is from just 10–20 rivers, however there are large uncertainties with these inferences because of a lack of data. Pointing the finger to Asia does not appropriately characterize plastic pollution either, which is everywhere. Want to experience plastic pollution? Alright, just walk outside.

To try and resolve this, Litter Mapping is being developed as new field of Geographic Information Science and it is increasing in popularity. It’s sort of like Pokémon Go, for tidy towns. Just take out your phone and start taking photos. You are actually doing proof of work and generating Littercoin.

Instead of restricting access to data and solutions, OpenLitterMap fully embraces open data.

This means that anyone can download all of the data for free, and use it for any purpose, without permission, restriction, or even an account. This data updates in near-real time following verification. Currently the data is only available as a CSV but when I get another developer on my team we will release a filterable json API soon too.

For example, check out this incredible stretch of free and open data on the pollution being caused by the products of a handful of global corporations:

Want to download the data? Alright cool

https://openlittermap.com/maps/The%20Netherlands/Zuid-Holland/Wassenaar/download

This is a real world treasure hunt, that can save us potentially trillions in environmental damage.

Problem is, I am just 1 self taught developer working on this by myself with no funding. I would like to be able to hire a developer and buy myself a new laptop as 2 of my keys don’t work which is kind of annoying when you are trying to take on plastic pollution at a global scale by yourself. So far 7 grant applications have been rejected, including the Pineapple Fund which was heartbreaking, the EEA, Dash, and others. No love from blockchain to give blockchain a good news story which might actually increase the legitimacy and value of blockchain?

Pre-grant I am turning to crowdfunding in a desperate attempt to raise money, but not much love there either. So far about 10 people have very kindly made a donation, but it is nowhere near where I need it to be. OpenLitterMap works like Patreon with monthly optional $5 subscriptions built in if anyone wants to see more updates your love & help will be put to very good use. You can also make a seamless crypto donation (Bitcoin, Eth, Dash) @ openlittermap.com/donate or give me an email to talk about sponsorship / advertising

Littercoin is an open book. It costs me money to send the tokens, and only 2,950 have been issued and are now in circulation out of the 20,450 earned so far.

You can use Littercoin for anything. If you have a business and you want to market your product/service, you market yourself to Littercoin hodlers by offering a % discount or a trial on product XYZ. Ultimately I want people to be able to get a coffee, or a discount on a parking ticket or a trip to the zoo.

100 Littercoin are earned for dynamically creating a country in the database by being the first to upload, 50 for a state, and 25 for each city. Other than that 1 Littercoin is rewarded for every 100 images submitted in a row which is intended to incentivize people to submit data correctly.

After collecting geotagged photos of any kind of rubbish, log into OpenLitterMap, submit, and tag x y z litter in each photo and submit the image for verification. That’s it!

I want to see people rewarded for doing the work and I cant WAIT to share the whitepaper soon!

I will be at the Berlin Blockchain Discovery Tour September 10–12th if anyone wants to come and say hi !

More info here in my first peer-reviewed paper

https://opengeospatialdata.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40965-018-0050-y

Happy mapping

#OpenLitterMap