The potential of participatory citizen science in observing change in plastics in soils

In Europe, about 50 million tons of plastic are produced per year out of which ca 40% is processed into packaging (Plastic Europe, 2022). Packaging often ends up in landfill or in the environment after only a short or single use. Unfortunately, recycling is often inadequate, contributing to only about 10% of the European demand for plastic being met by recycled plastics (Plastics Europe, 2022). Large amounts of plastic end up in the oceans, accumulating as "garbage patches" and washing up on shores. However, the amounts of plastics that end up in soils is not precisely known. Scientific studies have concluded that 4 to 32 times as much plastic ends up in soils as in water bodies (Horton et al., 2017). In addition, little is known about what types of plastics enter the soil environment, and in what proportions.

The Soil Plastic App allows citizens to input observations of visible plastics and their characteristics, with a strong focus on agricultural plastics, on soils and enable to monitor the change of plastics in soils. The App runs on the citizen science Spotteron Platform and is available for iOS, Android and as a web application. This way, observations can be entered anywhere on the globe and anytime. Since December 2022, citizens have already made over 22.000 plastic observations in the SoilPlastic App. The first set of validated Austrian citizen observations between beginning of April 2023 and end of July 2023 resulted in ca 6000 observations, as part of the Austrian Citizen Science Award Project Bunter Boden. This presentation will present the first results from Austria and discuss the potential of SoilPlastic App in observing change of plastics in soils.