TECH

British project uses drones and IA to find plastic waste in the sea

The Plastic Tide project consists of capturing images with plastic garbage obtained through drones and from which a computer will be programmed to recognize and distinguish the various types of objects, ranging from fishing nets to sacks.The monitoring, besides making known the location of the waste, will also allow to know its origin as well as the companies that made them. This information can help you understand which sectors are most impacting in the environment.In order to build a system that can show almost in real time the way plastics are spread, the initiative counts on the contribution of volunteer citizens by sending images from various parts of the world. In this way they hope to gather as much information as possible into the computer."In the short term, this idea can be used to help organize clean-up actions by alerting citizens to the areas with the greatest impacts on human life, marine ecosystems and birds," says Peter Kohler, founder of the project.
The initiative has already attracted many sympathizers who are sending their photographs, but also to gather to collect litter on beaches and on the shores. Through the website can also help train the algorithm to discover plastics and rubbish in pictures of beaches.



Sapo