The Atlas of Plastic Waste is a collaboration between the Basel Action Network (BAN) and graduate students Matthew Gordon (Yale University) and Anna Papp (Columbia University). The project aims to harness human discoveries, along with inputs from satellite and computer technology, to identify sites around the world where plastic waste ends up in the terrestrial environment. The goal is to raise awareness worldwide to the unsustainable characteristics of plastic and the large degree it has become an unwanted geographic feature of our collective landscape and the earth's biosphere.
We are soliciting submissions from each of you for the locations of plastic waste dumps to begin the creation of a global database of these sites. If you know of a major dump site (at least the equivalent volume of waste as a large city bus), please submit the information below:
With these locations, we will use satellites to view these dumps and create a machine learning algorithm that can find more sites independently/automatically. The Atlas will ultimately contain data based on your submissions to our entry portal, as well as verified new locations discovered by satellite.
Help us create and build this Atlas by inputting known sites in your part of the world, and likewise tell your friends to join in from their corners of the world. Together we can make this Atlas a comprehensive global snapshot and help the public and governments better understand the severity of the plastic malignancy on the earth today.
