Say Hello to Littercoin — A Blockchain Reward for producing Open Data on Plastic Pollution. OpenLitterMap Follow Feb 10, 2018 · 2 min read

The #GeoBlockchain is upon us. Say Hello to Littercoin, a Blockchain Reward for producing Open Geospatial Data on plastic pollution anywhere, that is of urgent environmental concern.

tldr; 1 min video and instructions:

Plastic pollution was first recognised to have a global distribution in the marine environment as early as 1975 (Rees and Pond, 1995). Since then, things have gotten and with current trends, are expected to get remarkably worse. As well as picking up and filtering out as much plastic as possible, we need data to improve existing services, know where to apply cleanup efforts and limited resources, and use geospatial storytelling to redefine our relationship with plastic. And create a financial incentive for people to go out and collect the data (healthy ecosystems not good enough??).

Currently Littercoin has no monetary value or utility, but watch this space. OpenLitterMap is continuously being developed and improved. For a history of updates since the April 2017 launch, check out the instagram.

I’m sure you’ve heard that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. There may well already be about 50 trillion pieces of plastic in the oceans, which is a staggering 100–250 times the number of stars in our galaxy. If you want to experience plastic pollution today, just walk outside.

So I developed openlittermap.com and Littercoin, a Citizen Science Open Data Litter-Mapping Game with a Blockchain Reward that enables anyone, anywhere, to recieve recognition for mapping and producing Open Data on plastic pollution. All data goes through a verification process to ensure its validity and upon verification, all data is made easily accessible for anyone to download and reuse for any purpose with the Open Database License, and all data is automatically analyzed by space, time, location and behaviour. And, users can receive a weekly payment in Littercoin (erc-20), which is “mined” by producing Open Data.

Create maps like this anywhere and “mine” Littercoin by producing Open Data @ openlittermap.com

Check out my TED talk here.

Coming soon: Lynch S., (2018)., OpenLitterMap,com — Open Data on Plastic Pollution with Blockchain Rewards (Littercoin)., Open Geospatial Data, Software, and Standards (In Press).

Happy Mapping!