Do a litter survey

How?

Get started with our litter survey template. You can use this in two ways:

Download and print; then once done, you can input your survey data into the online form on our members site.

Survey directly on your device, using the online form on our members site. This will also save you having to submit your data later.

What?

A litter survey involves tallying the litter you see within a defined area (or 'transect') and submitting this data to us. It doesn't take long and you may be surprised by what you find when you look closely.

 We gather data from both the beach and key surrounding areas like the prom or car parks, so a full survey has two parts:

Beach survey

Survey transect
Length: 100m along the shore
Width: from the edge of the beach up until the strandline (the high tide mark)
More information from Marine Conservation Society here.

Terrestrial survey

Survey transect
Length: 100m
Width: 2m
More information from Clean Up Scotland here.

Where?

We are primarily interested in data from our designated campaign transects:

• Ayr
• Troon
• Irvine
• Saltcoats/Ardrossan
• Kinghorn Harbour
• Portobello
• Fisherrow Sands

If you'd like to survey different part of the beach that's ok, simply make sure your transect meets the length/width criteria above and make a note of the coordinates on your survey sheet.

What will happen to the data you collect?

First of all, we will use your survey data as part of monitoring work for the My Beach Your Beach campaign - see here last year's campaign report and report cards for each beach.

In addition it will contribute to our national database, that we use to help inform our litter prevention work.