Ideas for monitoring plastic marine litter

Logos of some of the selected public ideas for monitoring plastic marine litter, gathered through ESA's Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP). OSIP seeks innovative ideas on a variety of topics.

It is extremely difficult to monitor the millions of tonnes of plastic entering the ocean each year, as from Earth's surface it's impossible to see a lot of the ocean at once. All the selected ideas take advantage of the more promising vantage point of space, but otherwise display a diverse range of applications and technologies. There are ideas looking at plastic in rivers, shores and the open ocean, using novel techniques and applying technologies such as artificial intelligence, LIDAR and thermal imaging in new ways.