Klaas Pauly

Litter on the street, in nature or in rivers and the sea is not only a visible environmental problem – it also costs society a lot of money. But how do you solve it? And can citizens help with that? River Cleanup and VITO joined forces with the aim of optimising clean-up actions by identifying litter on river banks. In the citizen science project Waste Watchers, they collected drone imagery of the banks of the Scheldt in order to identify litter. The imagery was analysed at VITO Remote Sensing and processed into a user-friendly map that shows the distribution of the waste.

Best professional project and public award for Waste Watchers.

Join the public event and vote for Waste Watchers. Update 7 November 2023: Waste Watchers won two awards, the award for best professional project and the public award. Read the news item here.

VITO and River Cleanup launch unique research project that combines citizen science and AI The Waste Watchers project engages civilians to use drones to take photographs of the banks of the river Scheldt. Artificial Intelligence then detects where most of the litter is located. This VITO and River Cleanup research project is a world first, the first time the wider public is involved by using their drones to identify litter.