Dirk Groot, aka the Tramp Senator
Dirk cleans up litter daily. And not only that. He records it and points out the impact to business and government. With success.
"We can never completely solve the problem with litter. But if we collect data we can guide, drive and help industry and government. We should always make consumers aware of education and behavior, but there are many more causes of litter than just throwing it away. Business can also do much more and take responsibility by improving packaging, for example. That is what I am fighting for, for preventing litter and plastic pollution at the source."
Collecting data
Dirk wanted to understand more about the source and decided to literally map the waste. He digitizes the problem by recording the litter and its locations to wake up producers and governments. Since 2016, he has been taking a geolocated photo of every piece of litter he picks up and then adding data/labels. "With this, I want to show that there is a lot more litter than we think and started measuring, visualizing and researching."