Litter concentrations in nature are typically measured as item counts by type. However, numerical concentrations offer limited comparability because litter items vary greatly in composition and size, from a few centimeters (e.g., bottle caps, cigarette filters) to several meters (e.g., fishing nets). Clean-up campaigns sometimes report litter by weight, but cleaning and drying samples is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process.
Littermeter © provides an alternative way to quantify litter as mass loads by material type. Using standardized digital images of litter samples, Littermeter classifies items semi-automatically and estimates litter mass for major material categories, including plastics, metals, glass, cardboard/paper, and textiles.
