Dirk Groot, alias the Wanderer
Dirk cleans up litter every day. And that's not all. He records it and draws the attention of businesses and the government to its impact. With success.
We will never be able to completely solve the problem of litter. But if we collect data, we can guide, encourage, and assist industry and government. We must always make consumers aware of education and behaviour, but there are many more causes of litter than just littering. The business community can also do much more and take responsibility by, for example, improving packaging. That is what I am fighting for: preventing litter and plastic pollution at the source."
Collecting data
Dirk wanted to gain more insight into the source and decided to literally map the waste. He digitizes the problem by registering the waste and its locations in order to raise awareness among producers and governments. Since 2016, he has been taking photos of every piece of litter he picks up, geotagging them and adding data/labels. "I want to show that there is much more litter than we think and have started measuring, visualizing, and researching it."