Project: DirtSpotz app and school classes help to protect the environment
The Federal Educational Institute for Elementary Education (BAfEP) is part of the Sparkling Science project “Plastic.Alps”. The project, in which class 2A participates, is about the spread and effects of microplastics in sensitive high alpine habitats. The “DreckSpotz” app is used for the documentation.
INNSBRUCK. The DreckSpotz App (formerly NaturPutzer) was opened by GLOBAL 2000, together with the Edelweiss and Mountain Club sections of the Austrian Alpine Club. “We free our nature from garbage and keep it clean sustainably. We inform and collect joint data to find long-term solutions to the litter problem. The users” of the app are informed about the dangers that litter in nature poses can and general information about the environmental impact of the following waste categories (plastic & rubber, metal, glass & ceramics, electronics, paper, textiles and cigarettes)” inform the project operators.
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The app is designed as a citizen science project. The research project “PlasticAlps” of the University of Innsbruck (Institute for Ecology) focuses on plastic waste in the high mountains. The cooperation of the “DreckSpotz” app with the “PlasticAlps” project enables the scientific investigation of the littering problem in the supposedly preserved high mountains. The project has a duration of 36 months. The NMS Reutte, BAfEP (kindergarten pedagogy), VS Obsteig and the MS of the PHT are involved as schools in the project.
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PlasticAlps
The project team Exactly the task: “Microplastics, which pollute our environment, are already accompanying us in our reporting on an inflationary basis.
You can find out more about the subject of ecology from the Innsbruck district newspapers here
With the help of four different schools from Tyrol and a Citizen Science participation, we at PLASTIC.ALPS would like to contribute to getting a better picture of the pollution of highly sensitive alpine locations. Pupils and anyone who feels affected by this topic can participate. How? Via an easy-to-use app called “Dreckspotz”, which can be used to map and quantify garbage georeferenced.
This should lead to a rethink in our plastic consumption. Together with stakeholders and NGOs related to the environment (ÖAV, Friends of Nature), research results on the impact of polymers on high alpine communities are to be discussed and new strategies developed to raise public awareness of this problem and strategies to avoid it.”