Monitoring Plastic Pollution on Beaches with Drones: a Field Guide

This handbook is designed to guide scientists and the public on the best way to survey beaches for plastic pollution. While significant progress has been made to enable drone technologies to combat plastic waste, much of this information remains inaccessible - locked behind paywalls, commercial applications or in highly technical documents. Here, we aim to enable anyone with a drone to contribute, by providing resources for planning and conducting flights, selecting the right gear, processing data and getting results that can be shared with the wider community.

We provide methods for both standard consumer-grade cameras (RGB) found on hobbyists drones, and more advanced thermal (TIR) and near infrared (NIR) cameras. In both cases, there are approaches that can enhance the utility of your data, benefiting not only yourself, but also local government, community initiatives and scientists.

This handbook is by no means the last-word in the topic. Weencourage feedback that can make this resource as useful as possible, for as many people as possible. If you have suggestions, local information or wish to help translate it into another language, please get in touch!