ABSTRACT
There are many different conservation projects, mostly of local or regional scope, that are focusing on the problem of marine litter. This chapter presents some of the projects and evaluates their role in generating scientific data and contributing to the formation of international ocean citizenship. It suggests that citizen science projects have contributed importantly to the growing awareness about marine litter. One program that involves citizen scientists in collecting specific litter items is the International Pellet Watch. Volunteers sample plastic pellets on the beach, bag these in aluminum envelopes, and send them to the central analysis lab in Tokyo, Japan, where they are analyzed by environmental chemists. Citizen scientists, often guided and accompanied by professional scientists, collect and count all litter items in specific quadrats of standardized surface areas or along transects of standardized length. Citizen scientists can educate the general public about the coastal litter problem. This is done by sharing their personal experience, for example via social media.
