Fredonia students have been working on the Trash Tracker project, an initiative to analyze the amount and location of litter throughout the campus. The project has been adopted from fellow SUNY schools in an attempt to determine patterns in littering, and how it can be prevented.
The idea behind Trash Tracker is in locating trash on campus and recording its amount, whereabouts and proximity to a trash receptacle for three weeks, which on the Fredonia campus was through Nov. 16. It was done using a free downloadable app called EpiCollect, which is designed for citizen-science campaigns such as Trash Tracker and allows multiple users to collect data across time and space. The data is then made available to all. Once the app is downloaded, participants searched “TrashTracker” in a project search in order to join Fredonia’s Trash Tracker initiative.
After recording their data in EpiCollect, participants are expected to pick up the trash they have found, which will ultimately all be compiled into a display to be exhibited in the new Science Center next semester as a tangible reminder of the side effects of littering. After the trash collection period ended on Nov. 16, Mason and her students will work until Dec. 5 analyzing the data and discussing its implications.
Trash Tracker is being led by Professor Sherri Mason’s General Chemistry class, and Dr. Mason hopes it will be expanded and continued next semester by the students in her Environmental Chemistry class. Mason encouraged anyone with a smartphone or tablet to get involved in the project by downloading the EpiCollect app and using it to record any trash found around campus.
According to the initiative’s mission statement given on its Facebook group, which can be found by searching “Fredonia Trash Tracker,” the group of 15 students working on the project hope that it “will not only spread awareness regarding litter around campus, but also encourage people to get involved themselves either by assisting with the collection of data or simply putting their trash in the proper receptacles and not on the ground!”
